This would be an issue that unites the poor and the middle class. My wife and I make well over 100k and spend 20k a year on childcare in the DC area. We're drowning and likely not going to have a second child because of the high costs.
The GOP only cares about the wealthy. The Democrats only care about the poor. The middle class gets left behind in this country all the time.
Will someone step up?
47
@Jg if you make 'well over 100k' you should not be "drowning"...better meet with a financial adviser...
10
Forty-five years ago my daughter was born in France. I had 3 months maternity leave, a 10 day stay in the maternity clinic, and licensed, affordable home day care when I returned to work. I did not have a high paying corporate job.
Having had that experience, when we returned to Boston when my daughter was 3 months old, I was appalled and enraged to find in the wealthiest nation on earth how little support there was for a young family needing trustworthy care for their baby. It was heart-wrenching for me to have to go off to work and rely on sub-standard care, and to constantly fear the loss of employment when I had to stay at home when she was sick. As I read the comments, I see that the workplace today is little more sympathetic to the struggles of families with children than it was 45 years ago.
I appreciate the comments of those who have lived in Europe and know that if Americans were willing to pay the price, we, too, could have quality, affordable, quality daycare for all our young children. Knowing how much economic sense it makes in terms of productivity and the potential for a committed, loyal workforce, it is so hard to fathom why there is so much resistance by the very people who would benefit the most from government subsidized child care.
41
We have been “eating our seed corn” in this nation in exchange for short term economic profits for a select few “Makers” for years now. Children who are the greatest resource a nation can have for sustainability have become collateral damage to small govt.,deregulation and privatization for profit. Annie E. Casey Foundation has been both measuring the quality of children’s life throughout our Country for years as well as working at state, local and national level to reform the quality of life for children and families. Check out aecf.org. to access analytics and data. Kids Count Data Center and Data Book is in particular a seminal collection, showing patterns and trends.
12
We need more people working.
Put work above leisure.
The nation needs to increase its productive capacity.
Working parents are the great untapped resource that have been left out of our economic model.
Children need to be properly educated by day care "professionals" who will ultimately be employees of the government.
In that way, American children can be properly "educated" by those who work for the state.
And I thought Marx was dead.
Certainly you are no student of history or you would never write such rubbish except under a pen name.
For someone so enthusiastic about getting people to work, you sound capitalist on one level.
10
Free food too. It is very expensive to feed a family.
19
Both parents need paid leave for at least six months when their children are born. Business's need to get on board to support their employees with young families. This is a vital time for parents to bond with their babies.
8
Why would you suppose that only grandmas can take care of children? Why do we keep reinforcing these stereotypes and gender roles?
16
The federal government operated daycare centers during World War Two, so that women could support the war effort by working outside the home.
Why not now??
23
Universal child care could also open up a potentially productive middle-ground abortion discussion. Day care for all would seem to be a helpful ingredient in the Bill Clinton mantra that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
7
We continue to treat our workforce, and our children, as disposable widgets that do not warrant investment (or humane treatment).
No affordable quality childcare, poorly paid educators and supportive healthcare workers, no affordable college....
For a country that is supposedly the most successful country this planet has ever seen, the way we treat our citizens is a disgrace.
20
Education and health gurus everywhere have published ad nauseam on the benefits of pre-school nutrition and intellectual exposure and stimulation. In Brazil where I worked for the World Bank there are laws requiring companies over a certain number of employees to provide day care. Our issue was to work with state and local governments and the private sector to ensure that appropriate food and adequately trained day-care center staff were available.
Madame de Vos are you listening?
The single most important fix for elementary school under achievement is pre-school care. Research demonstrates that kids who start at a disadvantage and are not reading and meeting minimum second grade standards are destined to perform poorly throughout their educational careers which prejudices them as adults. That is why Brazil's more progressive states focus on pre-school, first and second grade with special programs to bring disadvantaged children up to grade level. And it goes without saying that nutritional supplements provided in school are essential for mental development and also an incentive for poor, often hungry children to go to school.
Add to this Brazil's universally renown Bolsa Familia income supplement to bring families up to a minimum, essential level of well-being and we see that the US has much to learn about addressing poverty, education and health. Not because it lacks knowledge or resources. But because its willful ignorance distorts national priorities.
11
If you can't take care of your children, don't have them. It's not that complicated. The government isn't there to catch all your decisions. Please. Why should I pay for your children's care and education? At some point, even parents need to become adults. That means owning their own decisions. So, to all you people who don't get it: the world is much better when individuals live up to their own commitments. Can you imagine a cast of caretakers? And who will take care of their children? Where does it end? Nowhere: until each of us faces our own deeds and needs.
32
Socialism worked for me! I was struggling to find a pre-school in San Francisco in the early 90’s. I managed to find a co-op which was highly competitive to get into, which would have required me to work in it one day a week. But it was still very expensive for a few days a week. Fortunately we moved to Australia where I was spoiled for choice, and all the choices were professionally staffed and subsidized by the state government.
When I hear the word ‘Socialism’ spit out by the uninformed as a dirty word, I see a very selfish person who just spit it out. Why not call it sharing? Share in caring for the young children who will soon be financing your social security check. Anyone on Social Security and Medicare who spits at ‘Socialism’ needs to be confronted with the difference between what they paid into these programs and what they get out of them now. It was the best investment my parents ever made... beyond their wildest dreams. I remember my father earning 100-200/week when I was growing up, yet my parents were getting at least $2000 a month before they died. That investment while my father was working was so much better than the US Savings Bonds we bought for our childrens’ university educations.
23
In speaking of these new proposals of providing everything and anything for free we are told that they were dismissed by experienced Democrats as impractical and naïve. Still the writer believes that it is a very valid idea and worthy of being taken seriously because now "these supposedly pie-in-the-sky proposals are wildly popular among Democrats and have entered the political mainstream as important topics of discussion".
The obvious question is what does the fact that "pie-in-the-sky proposals" are now widely popular among Democrats say about the current state of the party's hard core supporters. It certainly does not mean that the proposals have become any more realistic. To the contrary. The newest proposal, the Green New Deal makes the proposals set forth by Sanders look as sober, realistic and well thought out, as the Green New Deal comes across as the wish list of a child who is does not understand the difference between what they want to happen, and what is possible to happen.
It seems that the Democratic party is on the verge of a takeover by a radical fringe that will make Trump and his supporters takeover of the Republican party look normal. Because what all of these proposals have in common is that they don't even attempt to address the reality aspect that is usually the problem with not being able to get what one wants.
And since most voters that care about reality they are handing Trump a 2nd term on a silver platter.
14
Katha
Thank you so much of your timely article. It is good to know you are alive and well. As a second wave feminist I remember the continuous feeling of guilt I felt as a mother who worked outside the home and I was lucky enough to stay home until my children were 3 and 6. I cannot imagine what it is like for current mothers who are forced to go back to work before they want to after childbirth and do not have a supportive workplace.
The time has come for dependent care to become a primary policy platform for the Democratic Party.
7
I can't imagine who those mothers forced to go back work are. Please give us the facts about this.
3
So you want to take more of my tax money, while actively advocating for things that would benefit me being less important? Women are more than just mothers! We can have other dreams and ambitions. You want to get women out of poverty? Universal birth control access and universal higher education. Help women who want kids be able to afford them BEFORE they have them. Make it something that parents can opt into at a greater tax burden. Parents already pay less in taxes, while using more public services. People without kids already pay for so many services they can't use, and parents keep trying to take more away from us while raising taxes. It's insane.
19
This is indeed an issue whose time has come. Twenty-eight years ago, I was the sole wage earner when our daughter was born and my husband went back to university full-time. I remember being shocked that infant care cost half of our mortgage, and it is much worse now.
The Millennials are the largest generation since the Baby Boomers, and they are the one now having babies. Together we have the numbers to get this do e. Civilized countries like France and Germany and Norway have free infant care, because they actually value children. In America some people go on about the sanctity of unborn children, but don’t seem to care about the health, education, food, or shelter after they are born.
16
@Theresa Nelson
"France and Germany...actually value children"
All the American parents I know love and value their children and find a way to raise them without taxpayer-subsidized daycare. There was no such thing as daycare when I was a kid and I and my five siblings somehow made it to adulthood without trauma. How dare you paint all American parents as "uncaring" just because you haven't gotten your way. The only derelict parents I see are the ones who produce child after child with no thought about raising them without a partner or marketable skills on a minimum wage job, or no job at all.
17
Do most women really want to send their children to day care? In families where there is enough money, the choice of the parents still is one where the father works and the mother stays home. In the debates about day care, that preferred option needs to be included.
19
We all should have clearly in mind the essential cultural foundational fact that this society is not all that interested in its lower and middle class children reaching their full potential. The principal responsibility for this is thought to lie solely within a (nuclear) family. To think otherwise would inevitably lead to public meddling in private family matters.
Besides, to try and do anything close to achieving the goal of broadly available and affordable quality day care would require such a large amount of money, procured from
the private sector and upper income households, that only
a political revolution along the lines of 1932 could realize
it. Indeed.
Symptomatic of this inertia are comments asserting that to
define "high quality day care" is already problematic, or complaining that the phrase is
code for creating a large federal bureaucracy with a one size
fits all model imposed from above etc.
In other words, large parts of the society even resist treating the goal as an ideal whose partial realization would still be a net plus. Such pessimism, posing as realism, is then allowed to cut short any further discussion, which leads to the society washing its hands of the matter by just giving up.
This reflects a woeful absence of leadership within the Democratic party. Why can't it develop a state oriented program to address the daily chaos in millions of lives due to the absurd dysfunctions in day care?
I just don't get it.
6
What about corporations contributing their fair share ? They refuse to give any of their tax cuts to their workers so why not have corporations then at least help the kids ? Many of these large corporations could easily afford to build a company Day care center and at least help the parents pay for it , if not pay for it outright .
Capitalism has helped many in the USA which is great . Now they need to give some back to help everyone else that’s helping them get their 15 million dollar bonuses !!
8
As a childcare provider, I agree that we need the government to subsidize childcare- I have families that are paying close to $1400/month for infant care & $1200/month for children over the age of two. The problem with the current situation is that there is not enough spots for infants even if their parents could afford the care. Universal paid maternity & paternity leave would and should be the first step towards solving the problem of a shortage of quality childcare options. Parents would be able to stay home during the first 18 months with their children which in the long term is best for the child.
9
Funding a sustainable infrastructure of care for all families (including subsidized professional child care, as well as paid family leave for both men and women to care for their infants and toddlers) is the right thing to do, both economically and morally. When we recognize collectively that all of us as citizens of the richest country in the world deserve it, that our tax dollars provide more than enough to fund it, and that our children (and their unpaid or underpaid caregivers) are absolutely worth it, we can agitate to achieve it.
Working collaboratively for work-family justice is a worthy and essential goal, as outlined in a new book Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving by Caitlyn Collins, which explores how women navigate work and family given different policy supports in Sweden, Germany, Italy and the United States. Her important research awakens us to the reality that systemic support is necessary to achieve true equality for women, while offering children the nourishing, relationship-based, professional care they deserve while their parents work. This is happening in other countries, and together we can turn this fantasy into reality for American families, too.
8
As a former single mother who supported my only child for many years on a modest (30-40K) income, I agree that working mothers are placed in an awful bind when it comes to paying for childcare or choosing to give up working and building careers during the most critical income earning years. I appreciated the EITC and childcare deductions. But I was fortunate enough to have a skill that has enabled me to work from home for the past 6 years, so I could earn an income and be available for my family. Most women do not have that choice. And even those of us who do, we pay for it in lost opportunities and significant challenges to moving forward in our careers after our children get older, because we are also older.
I know several women trying to return to the workforce now that their kids are older, but employers don't seem interested. A lot of comments imply that anyone who can't afford to stay home with their kids should not have them. But what about those who can and are still punished for sacrificing for their families? In an ultra competitive economy women who would make good mothers are essentially forced to choose between having a career and having a family. The flip side to this is that poor women who already have too many children are doing most of the procreating with government subsidies supplementing their meager incomes.
5
Often absent from this conversation is that early childhood workers need to be paid more. MUCH more. However we pay for universal day care, we cannot leave out the dedicated and criminally underpaid workers that take care of our children. There is an immediate need for daycare workers to unionize.
11
There is little "quality daycare" out there-- relationship based, consistent, loving, respectful, peaceful care that allows a baby / toddler to learn to trust in life and her/himself. If this funding ever comes to pass, a revolution in daycare will have to happen, as the youngest ones thrive and learn best in a homelike setting, not an institution or school like one. For guidance and a map of this revolution, look to LifeWays North America: " Nurturing families, inspiring childcare". www.lifewaysnorthamerica.org The early childhood years are critical, and
childcare can be a meaningful, creative, joyful career. LifeWays can lead the way.
2
The idea of state-supported child care is far more complex than providing day care. It's been several generations now that the need for day care - as a direct result of lowered wages and fewer quality jobs, shared between more and more people once EEO opened the doors to more women becoming FT workers - has become a staple. And no, that's not a lament for the "good old days" when men were the breadwinners and women stayed home to watch the kids. That said, what if people were paid a good enough wage like they used to be when a single paycheck provided a decent house, car, vacation, a few luxuries? And by that EITHER spouse could choose to work or stay home and focus on raising the kids.
And what has been the impact of easier abortions, easier divorces, the tacit acceptance of teen sex and pregnancy? Are these just things to be accepted as unchangeable, and therefore we should subsidize these choices? Have any reliable studies been done to examine these questions, and come up with any solutions for these problems? If so, it would be great to see them published and publicized.
Maybe the "genie" can't be put back in the bottle, and we have to simply accept a new version of what a family means, and that it's subservient to individual interests like having unprotected sex, abortions, divorce, and companies not paying workers enough to raise a family, but these choices have costs, even beyond the cost of providing state paid day child care. We need to think about what we want.
3
Thank you so much for this spot on article. One of the main reasons I was supporting Hillary was because of her effort to improve family leave for the country. But this is also as important - and in particular given the family leave aspect has t moved - now more critical than ever. I would gladly pay additional taxes to ensure all women are able to put their kids into quality daycare. I am fortunate that I am currently living in Denmark so not only did I have more than the average American woman for maternity leave (had 7 months with my job but the norm here is 12 months) but the daycare is amazing and I feel extremely privileged. It is subsidized so we pay about $500-$550 per month. The institutions here are so good and you really trust them. Taxes here are higher but they get this sort of service plus free healthcare and college for these taxes. If Americans do not want to bring all of these things - agree - let’s start with daycare and many other things will be better for women and families.
5
Quebec had virtually free daycare for all from birth --and the kids exposed to full time care from birth turned out markedly more poorly than the cohort a bit older.
Why is it antifeminist to declare that babies need mothering?
15
@Megan
This is a spurious claim you’re making, backed up by zero sources or reference. If you’re going to attempt to slander an entire province, you might want to have actual facts to prove it.
6
Virtually free day car. Please elaborate.
3
How will society prevent this program from becoming a subsidy for single motherhood? This type of program could encourage inappropriate child bearing because much of the burden of daily care would be removed, but the subsidies that come with additional children would continue.
19
It won't. More people producing more kids;which translates into adults consuming more precious resources. Time to stop the population explosion. Free birth control for all; abortion on demand up to the moment of birth for women. We have to reduce the population explosion anyway we can, even it is border line moral.
7
I was extremely fortunate that our comfortable income meant high day care rates were not a problem for my husband and me.
However, it was still a huge struggle to find a quality program I trusted, among the many choices. I only found 2 day cares that I considered quality, and they both had lengthy waiting lists. I signed onto the two waiting lists the day I learned I was pregnant, and was lucky to get a placement in one of them, several months after my child's birth. Both of the quality day care centers were run by sponsoring organizations which subsidized their operations. One of the two closed several years later, citing the high cost of operation.
This is a massive problem for young families. The day care providers themselves have problems, but that's another issue. Helping fix this is investing in our next generation, which I happen to think is as important as national security.
6
I fear the word progressive has been hijacked by those who desire a large number of government programs that will provide life's essentials for free. The Democratic Party has made tremendous progress gaining employment opportunities for everyone; for gaining basic civil rights for everyone. But they are going to get a bad reputation if they don't stop the never ending ideas for more free stuff for all.
15
This is a real problem but I'm not sure this is the most progressive solution. The plan is to put a baby in daycare so the parent can get back to work as soon as possible?
At that most important first year it would be better to extend required paternity leave to a full year - which should also appeal to the family centric view of child rearing - and have universal daycare take over when paternity leave ends.
7
A related challenge for parents of post-daycare school-age children in particular is how to get care for one's children when the schools are closed for the seemingly ever-increasing number of so-called "in-service" days for teacher training (intriguingly almost always scheduled for Mondays or Fridays), not to mention how to cover days when children are sick. My wife and I used almost all of our vacation days, and separately to extend the coverage, for 15+ years to cover these circumstances, and still had to scramble to find alternative care on days we couldn't miss work. I think the schools and teachers are oblivious to how tough they make it on families in this regard.
6
@Cowboy Marine Agreed. That was one of the main reasons working from home has been such a blessing the past few years. I had a daycare provider that considered herself a 'teacher' and so many days when the schools were closed, she was also closed. But she demanded to be paid in full for the week, knowing that parents would have to lose a days pay or pay someone else to watch our kids, while paying her.
Most of the people I worked with who had kids would come to the office really sick so they could save sick days for when their children were sick and had to be kept home from school.
4
@Cowboy Marine You have my sympathy, but here’s the truth: school is NOT your personal day-care center.
8
@Cowboy Marine
What exactly did you want to do with your vacation days -- head to Tahiti? You chose parenthood and what better way to spend your paid leave than .... parenting?
Sometimes I have to take vacation days to do home improvements, escort sick/elderly relatives to appointments, take my pet to the vet. It's called life. I would never dream of asking strangers to fork out their money to relieve me. Why do you?
12
The tell pops out deep in the body of this manifesto: "parenthood turn(s) previously egalitarian couples into gender stereotypes."
Perhaps we can argue that the "stereotype" is entirely in the eyes of the beholder; that, in fact, actual motherhood and child-rearing is not something to be toyed with for utopian (read, state-sanctioned) goals. Progressives really want all women to be working-working-working, in the absence of any real government assistance (direct dollars, actually) in the full-time, vitally-important business of raising a future citizen. Kids are not luxury items to be farmed-out to nannies and state-run camps; the care of children is a deep, ancient and honest responsibility.
It's one thing to attach "high-quality" to the Brave New World idea of day-care for all; but advocates never want to get down into the short grass. Who, for example, defines "high-quality"? Take a bow, Betsy De Voss!
5
Americans tend to believe the myth that rugged individualism is the only way to live. We apply that to every little thing we can. It's why we have a lousy social safety net. It's why we refuse to acknowledge how much of life is a team effort or how much we do need to cooperate. It's why we walk away from people in need and blame them for problems they can't solve on their own. It's why we tell people to take any job they can get without realizing that some people will never get a job or find another job.
It's about time Americans stopped penalizing themselves and their countrymen for needing help with raising a family and working. It's time we improved our social safety net so that children aren't endangered when their parents have to work, so that when we are seriously ill we aren't in danger of losing everything we've worked for, and so that our senior citizens can live out the rest of their lives with dignity.
We need each other from cradle to grave. Any society that doesn't recognize that is a society that is endangering itself. We've been doing a very good job of it lately.
14
@hen3ry
Point me to ANY public program that exclusively benefits the childfree. Just one. Or any that gives financial preference to the non-married.
You can't, because none exist. We the single and childfree are the cash cows of the United States, paying disproportionately high shares of our household revenue to federal income and FICA taxes, but getting back less than married and childed at the exact same income level.
Please stop talking to me about the village, about individualism, about your kid is going to pay my Medicare, and all those other tired tropes until or unless a decent safety net and benefits are put in place for solo citizens. Until then I will vehemently fight for my right to keep what I earn instead of handing it over to make life easier for my peers who happen to have chosen parenthood or marriage.
18
Universal Day Care and Pre-School are fundamental needs if we are to strive for equality and opportunity for all in this nation. People new to this life (kids) need equal care and education, especially in the most vital early years of development. Adults of all kinds, including those who care for kids (parents), need the time and freedom to be able to work and need to not go broke from childcare costs.
Without Universal Day Care & Pre-School the cycles of poverty, educational disadvantage and poverty cannot be overcome.
I am very happy to see this issue front and center in the NYTimes today.
9
As an educational psychologist focusing on EC development, quality care from birth is paramount to ensure children achieve their potential. Numerous studies document how $1 invested 0-5 equates to $8 + saved in future k-12 expenses.
Let's not forget a family's quality of life and how stress negatively impacts brain development. The ripples of child care cost also can lead to sporadic homelessness. 'Plan and only have the children you can afford' is a mantra of those opposing ECE support. The long-term impacts of only having affluent families bear children is terrifying!
The best care provider is a child's parent--so fund that! A year of paid family leave for a new parent.
What about a family of a child with special needs? Who provides care? Is the family trained to stimulate and support that child's needs?
My focus is children with hearing loss. Neurological studies show the brain is 95% hard-wired for sound by 2, yet most states only fund 4 hours/month of support for these children. Will the day care on the corner make sure the child's hearing aid is on and working? Will they know what to do if not? If a child is eligible and parents opt for a cochlear implant, who will work with the child daily to ensure it is working properly and re-map the implant when needed? Studies also show that children who wear their aids (HA or CI) and receive quality language input from birth attain grade level skills--money saved! Day care for all indeed--including those with special needs.
5
'Day care for all' would be nice.
As would 'free' college tuition and 'Medicare for All'.
Just like France .
And like France the government will need to collect about 48% of all national income in taxes.....and still runs a big deficit.
Or am I missing something here?
16
@Kenneth Johnson
France can afford such things because the US has been paying for its defense for the last century: WWI, WWII, Marshall Plan, cold war and NATO.
9
Yes please, single parents need it for sure but so does the middle class. With both spouses working, we can still just barely afford to pay our name-brand respectable daycare and save a few hundred dollars for our out-of-pocket Medical bills. We are thankful for what we can afford but often shudder at how precarious the situation is!
6
Earning a pay check is one aspect of life, not the only aspect, or even the most important one.
I am plenty aware of parents who have no choice but to work every job they can find. As an educator, I worked with those children and my heart is with those families.
I am also aware of people of means who believe they can pay someone to parent their child from dawn to dusk, as one might drop off a potted plant somewhere. It doesn't work that way. You cannot pay anyone so much that they will care for a child the way a healthy parent would. Contrary to what they try to tell us, everything is not for sale. Money can't buy parenting.
Whatever plans we come up with a culture - and we do need something... those who choose to give up extra bathrooms, new cars, and fine vacations to care for their own children should not do all the paying...
9
You used the term Child Care in your article, but still used antiquated Day Care in your title, why? If we want the profession and the work done at child cares/child development centers to be respected, the proper terms should be used.
2
We also have an elderly population in need of many types of care. We have rural populations without jobs and experiencing a crisis of drug addiction. We have a crisis in income equality, a crisis in the cost of housing, a crisis in the cost of higher education, and an ongoing crisis in the cost of healthcare, of course.
We cannot keep viewing our social care system as isolated populations with differing needs, and further, we cannot solve these problems by throwing money at them.
Fundamentally, we need to organize along intergenerational lines that recreates the social dynamic of a village, tribe or clan, and note that success occurs when the entire village moves ahead together.
A little less 'I' and a little more 'we'.
5
Getting old is not a choice. Getting sick is not a choice. Losing one's job during the era of profits over people is not a choice.
Having a child is a choice. A choice that comes with major responsibilities.
Before making that choice, every human being should consider: Can I afford it and, how will it affect the lives of the three people (minimum) directly concerned and others indirectly concerned?
It may be your right to have children but it is not my obligation to pay for that child.
I gladly pay taxes to support the elderly, the sick, the hungry and others of life's victims. But paying for other people's selfish and poor choices irks me.
22
@James J
Having a child is not necessarily a choice if you don't have access to family planning or abortion. It's only a choice if you're a male and can walk away from the consequences of your actions.
9
@James J really? It irks when people have children and then life happens? We all apologize when our lives don't work out the way we planned. However, your being irked is not constructive. Offering to help is.
7
@Sandy
What? It isn't a choice? You mean that humans have no self-control? I get it, we don't have brains and can't be held responsible for our own actions.
11
When I was a young mother in the 1960s, Society demanded that I not work but stay at home with my children. When I did work, as a STEM graduate, I went into science teaching. I have no Social Security credits for all those missing years.
I am not surprised that the birth rate is way down. I had 3 children but only 2 grandchildren. Go figure.
I am not surprised that people, usually women, do not go into childcare professionals I cringe when I hear such people, again usually women, say that they didn’t go into childcare because of the money. Why not? I don’t hear Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates et al make such statements.
I foresee a competent teacher shortage in the next few years. Already we are facing a lack of US STEM professionals. Again, go figure.
3
Worst. Idea. Ever. Send impressionable young hearts and minds to an institution where they are not loved all day. Newsflash: Most moms WANT to stay home with their babies.
18
@Truth&Freedom
Newsflash: this is what this is about: most moms *can’t* stay home with their babies, because they can’t afford to. And in your country, typical maternity leave is about three months long. There’s no way that’s not a problem for women. But there are few viable options for most working families.
2
LOL. This is based on what exactly?
If you can't afford it, don't have children.
25
@Kathy White
This is a terribly glib and ignorant response to what is a complex issue and an intractable problem in our society. It affects you whether you like it or not, whether you’re able to see that it does or not.
I’m disgusted by attitudes like this; these are the responses of self-centred people who are incapable of empathizing with others in their society.
7
For Pete's sake. bearing children should be based on the person's (not necessarily only the mother; the male must accept responsibility for the child!), economic and stability, not their stupid desire to have a child, regardless of their ability to care for the child.
We are going to "mate"! Period". This is a fact!!!!
Controlling and living with the results of their mating is a national concern. We can control unwanted pregnancies!
1. Keep all levels of government out of the argument with the exception of allowing and supporting ALL aspects of Birth Control.
2. Keep religion out of the argument. Human are not an endangered species!!!! The demands of your ego that YOUR child may solve the problems over population creates is arrogant beyound belief.
3. Accept and provide ALL aspects of contraception, including abortion. This includes sex education in early schooling, free contraceptives in school, abortion available on demand nation-wide, devoted research into male contraception! Our teen agers are exploring sex just as we did. Did you follow your parents admonitions? Common sense?
4. If having sex were not so much fun, we would not have this problem!
5. Once again, man's creation of "religion" must be confronted. Life is to be celebrated, but it is mandatory that life must also provide access to a healthy, positive existance.
This is the major problem! How do humans function to maintain a healthy planet?
11
Kudos Katha Pollitt! This is a well-conceived and timely argument!
The stool needs a third leg - in the form of why men should care about day care for all. It is NOT 'just a women's problem' and it IS a societal one, both positions you well establish. But men will also have to see their roles in order for this idea to contain political teeth.
How to best highlight men's roles in family responsibility dynamics? I don't have an answer to that. Since carrots are sometimes more powerful than sticks, I wonder whether the answer could be in the proposed solution. Men too will benefit from the solution and I hope that proposals will not be written as 'meeting the needs of women' or even 'meeting the needs of families (implying through support to mothers), but as Meeting the Needs of Fathers and Mothers of Children.
5
The publication of Kathe Pollitt's article coincides with the announcement of the death of Edward Zigler, the founder of Head Start in the 1960's. Despite the fact, as she mentions in her article, that both houses of Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971, which Zigler's office developed and advocated, then President Richard Nixon vetoed it as being anti-family. The veto of that bill was what was anti-family and anti-children. Today's knowledge of neuroscience - that the first 5 years of life are when 95% of the brain's architecture is built; that it is a critical period that sets the stage for life-long optimal development - confirms that high quality, accessible, affordable care and learning environments for children and families should be an essential part of our life.
2
Weobserve: There would be so much money available for free or reduced cost education for all, if that money were not sequestered by too many of the selfish, uncaring, fabulously wealthy types in your country. Taxing excess wealth, money that really is not usable by your money hoarders because there is only so much glitz one can garner, is a good idea whose time has arrived. We in the Balanitis Research Commune limit individual and aggregate wealth to a realistic range in the low 8 digits, with any amount of wealth above that taxed at 98 percent of the actual gross amount - no deductions allowed. Our region's educational system, from daycare to pre-school through post-grad and non-credit self-improvement courses, is available and provided to our Balanitis Research Commune's members at no cost, including supplies, books computers, transportation, meals etc. We also provide to the members of the Balanitis Research Commune, housing, transportation, medical services in our superbly equipped and staffed medical centers, in fact, everything and anything needed to live a full, content, happy life. We are so happy that we are not of your society at this time.
2
Maybe we’re just penny-wise and pound-foolish not to provide substantial support for child care. Think of all the income tax lost due to moms staying home and not working, and a substantial loss of workplace talent. Can we really afford to
Not have their economic contribution?
5
And here we are again arguing over personal responsibility, finger pointing who in the middle and lower class are to blame when they can’t afford childcare while income inequality continues to sky rocket and the other need headlines are about which millionaires and billionaires have the best shot at beating Trump.
These headlines are not disconnected. A specter is haunting America...
3
My monthly childcare costs ran a very close second only to my mortgage. I purposely spaced my 2 kids so that I would only have one in childcare at a time. No one believed me when I pointed out that childcare cost more than college. A luxury? Hardly. Without it I could not work. A ridiculous barrier for children and families. We as a society need to do better.
5
Yah, here is an issue that will bring liberals to power is oh, a hundred years or so. I support the concept and the hope, but long after climate change is dealt with seriously --- something that affects everybody.
1
The latest tax cut that Trump did for his wealthy corporate brothers shows that there is more than enough money to pay for every social need that the middle and lower class need . After all where is the money from the infamous family charity.
The elites have used the law to protect some ill gotten gains. Let’s look at Facebook making money and selling our democracy. Enough with the tired GOP slogans if you care so much about the unborn give us family leave , day care or maybe all children should be put in cages. The power of the vote can put you or take you out of office.
2
Sounds like "childhood education" needs to start before a woman or man decides to start procreating. It's the prospective parents who are not making realistic decisions, and then expecting to be bailed out by those of us who did make those hard decisions. No doubt this will strike some nerves. And obviously does not address the women who are raped or victims of incest who live in states where abortion is unattainable and thus are forced to bear a child.
I would be happy to pay to support those women. But the last thing this planet needs is for more people to have babies because, hey, others will pay for not only their education but their day care also!
10
More magic money tree stuff......
The median per capita income in the US is around $32,000,
The average per capita income is about $63,000
Note: This is NOT household income or worker ages but based upon the total personal income in the US
SO if you take all the 'extra' money by giving everyone in the US only $32000 per person. All income over that goes to the "We Want Everyone Else To Pay For It " stuff
Taking that $31000 difference between median and average gives you around $9,900,000,000 for the "stuff"
No person gets more than $32000 in income. Means 1 person gets $32000, a couple gets $68000, household of 3 $96000 etc - and that is it
Yep the numbers are right. The median worker (median NOT AVERAGE) makes less than $30000 a year.
There is not as much money to seize from the "rich" as you all seem to think.
Not gonna get real far with $9,900,000,000 when the idiotic "Green Deal" alone will easily blow past $120,000,000,000,000 just to fit every home with solar panels and sufficient battery storage and provide 2 Teslas per household (best mileage range) and the solar panels to charge the cars.. (That stuff isn't cheap - quote for a solar bank and batteries for 24/7 100% of all power needs even in winter for our house was north of $150000)
6
Your math is off. Our GDP per capita is the same or slightly higher (due to fewer holidays) compared to other Western countries.
With that more or less same output, they manage to provide a much higher quality of life to the majority of their citizens.
Americans have been fooled for too long into thinking that wealth redistribution is unfair.
Countries like Germany and the Netherlands (which I prefer over the Nordics as examples due to their diversity) have great economic growth and low unemployment, with much better prospects for every born child.
6
Sorry but I don't agree. Having children is for responsible adults who can afford them. Why do you think so many illegal immigrants are tearing down the walls to get here - FREE education, healthcare, food. Adding more stuff to the list will only increase these numbers. You should have children when you can afford to pay for them and take care of them. Not a second sooner.
17
Childcare costs according to this article are still lower than the average yearly salary of parents. Economically it likely makes sense to still work and pay for childcare rather than stay home. Don’t forget that children are already tax incentivized.
Where this argument breaks down is if you have multiple children. Then it makes more sense to stay home and take care of them. I think that is a fair trade off for society. I’m not sure what is wrong with being a stay-at-home parent. Raising kids is also important.
The real problem is that a larger percentage of people are struggling to make enough money to get ahead. It makes affording a family exceedingly difficult.
Think socialist policies will fix everything? I doubt it. Look at yellow vest protests in France - even though they have great socialist benefits the cost of living is becoming less and less affordable. They also shifted the tax burden, which pays for benefits, to the middle class.
2
This article ignores the fact that some women choose to stay home with their children when they are young because they view that as the best situation for their children. I understand that is a luxury for families with enough income to afford it, but that choice still shouldn’t be criticized. Staying home with my children has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Saying that it wastes the skills of highly educated women to do so demeans the important work of raising children. And I volunteer a lot in my oldest child’s public school helping to teach small groups. Strong parental support really strengthens the school. There would be no parent volunteers if everyone had to have a full time paid job.
7
I'm glad it works for you but staying out of the workforce for more than a few years is a huge risk. You may not be able to get back in.
5
@Ana. So true. My brother in law's ex-wife is finding this out the hard way. She has been living off child support for about 10 years, while my BIL can barely afford to cover the gas and tolls to pick up and drop of the kids on the weekend, because despite not working, she can't be bothered to meet him halfway. Now the kids are older and she can't get past the interview stage for any job. In a few years when child support ends and she has to sell the house she is in, what is she going to do? Even if she manages to find work until she reaches 65, almost 20 years from now, the years of lost and low wages will leave her with a SS income that won't cover the cost of living in NY, or most other places for that matter.
4
"Free", "affordable" and "subsidized" and on and on. All references to these 3 words (and any variants) should be replaced with the phrase: Someone else PAYS for something I want. Socialism doesn't work because coercion and force don't work.
14
Okay I get it...parents need some support these days. I do get it.
But for those of us with out children, whats my support system? Where do I, others like me get the societal support? Why is having children, a real lifestyle choice, to be supported by those of us who didn't, and/or cant have children? I'm already paying way too much in school taxes, when no student will ever leave this house and go to any of the districts schools. But I cant get a fair and justice-based reduction in those taxes till I'm in my 60's and even that is a pittance!
I/we don't mind contributing to the betterment of the local schools, but NOT on the same level, or amounts, as those who are also getting various other deductions for having children.
If having children is too much of a financial and lifestyle burden, then don't have them, don't have so many, or delay them...!
Again, I dont mind contributing to the greater good...but there has to be a means of fairness and justice to how others share that burden. Seniors don't need their taxes raised, and childless couples, households don't need to be equally on the hook for other peoples personal lifestyle choices, or in many cases Ooops!
13
Ahh yes, the outrage of those who have never spent one day taking care of a child, and have no idea of the day-to-day, minute-by-minute sacrifice and struggle. You have no idea...
3
@Steve I've spent a great deal of time taking care of kids. I have seven years of special needs child care experience. I chose not to have children, largely because of that. I pay more in taxes for services I'll never have cause to use. Of course I, and many other childfree people, am upset that parents want even more of my income for more services that will never benefit me, while actively dismissing things that would benefit me and others. If the EITC were taken away from parents and given to people without kids, y'all would have a fit. If you want more services for your kids, pay more in taxes.
8
Excellent article! I would only add that in addition to quality day care for all, the US needs adequate maternity leave so that newborns receive the maternal nurturing they need prior to entering day care. We can do it!
5
To those who dismiss the Nordic countries as a model for the US because they have high tax rates: add to your federal income tax + payroll taxes your state income tax, your local property tax, your health insurance premiums (including those paid on your behalf by your employer since they are an earned benefit and represent forgone income) plus what you must save for retirement and for your children's education. Let's not forget your employer's portion of the payroll tax because that is an earned benefit and also represents forgone income. What's left? Maybe 40-50% of your gross income? What's the difference? Oh, that's right, those additional costs aren't taxes--they are rents paid to our glorious private sector (insurance, mutual fund companies, etc.). Still happy with our vaunted free enterprise system?
5
Day care for all is so important, but we should go further and advocate for the quality of day care, not just the access to it. In particular, kids need preschool, both for kindergarten preparation, but especially for social skills, with lots of mentors, play and friends.
1
In a country where so many people claim to be pro-life and oppose abortion, there is never support for people with children. We need to stop arguing about whether women should work or stay home with their children and give families the help they need with safe affordable childcare.
5
@PCB
First, we need free, no questions asked birth control in every middle and high school, and free abortion.
I would be in favor of training EMTS to perform abortions and setting up free clinics in every police or fire station. There is generally one within reach in most neighborhoods, the facilities and health care providers already exist, and there is downtime they could put to good use.
5
@Earthling
Put the morning after pill in Pez-Dispensers.
5
The author assembles a wide range of good reasons for government sponsored child care facilities , but fails to mention the all important uber issue: ZERO POPULATION GROWTH principles must be written into any legislation the government attempts to enact. How many kids from a single family are to be provided for by the government at taxpayer expense ? Without limits the idea is ripe for exploitation by people who believe in their religious duty to "go forth and multiply" without the responsibility we must have now that the planet's population of Homo sapiens is 7.5+ billion. As a liberal progressive I would vote NO on any program devoid of such control.
9
@Alan
Right. Britain recently and sensibly put a cap on benefits, no more boosting the bennies for subsequent children. We don't need to further subsidize human procreation, plenty of it happens already.
7
@Alan That's kind of a silly analogy. How about we only help addicts who overdose three times. After their third time we tatoo a DNR on their forehead and if they overdose again we just leave them there? After all they are costing money to the state, right? The state is all powerful and if it so decides, then it must be. No freedom of religion for you!
Hear, hear! Both student debt and childcare costs made buying a home impossible for my family thirty years ago. There are real consequences for the economy when families can't afford to buy a home despite working multiple jobs. Inequitable conditions have only worsened under both Democratic and Republican administrations. With Republican hardliners and hypocritical Evangelicals trying to overturn Roe and access to contraception, women's participation in higher education and the labor force is further endangered. Why is the rhetoric from the Republicans always that social programs are negative? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, the Small Business Administration, U.S.D.A, SNAP, the VA, the GI Bill, and FEMA among others are all social programs that help millions of the hardworking and the vulnerable survive and thrive. The recent tax cut for the wealthy is also a social program. The question is what is a more effective use of our collective tax dollars? We need to invest in and strengthen all our social programs, including programs that help families, such as daycare, and return to a much more equitable system of taxation. Vote Democrat, and hold those Democrats accountable for using our money to help the majority of Americans.
4
@Dr. Conde
So by your own admission, the citizens of this nation already fund myriad programs that only benefit the childed.
Why one earth should we finance more? If people can't get it together enough to be marketable, save some money, find a stable, employable and committed partner, plan for the worst with life, health and disability insurance, and save in advance for daycare costs -- do we need them procreating? Of course not!
7
The idea of free education, childcare, paying a living wage, free healthcare for all is ridiculous. Healthcare certainly is a public safety issue and should be available and affordable but not free, people must make their own living wage, education can be subsidized because it helps all of us but not free, childcare is a problem. However, we cannot subsidize it completely only partially and the beneficiaries of all this financial aid must contribute through higher taxes. Are they willing?
6
I am a strong liberal Democrat. But I would not support Daycare for All. Parents need to plan for the costs of having children and also make the necessary personal sacrifices. Expanding healthcare access and improving educational opportunities are more important investments...for ALL.
14
@Jo I disagree about education for all. If we are to spend on college then we should model the europeans. A national test for everyone who wishes to get in, no excuses for failure. The state also decides how many spots will be spent for each major. No excess of social workers or art majors. The state also decides which college you attend, with most attending close to home. When I went to college over 40 years ago (how did I get so old!) I met many foreign students that were paying for their educations because they didn't pass their states' tests. My roommate was from Helsinki and tried twice.
1
Here's to Public Pre-K appearing on the platform of the democratic contenders, but haven't heard that being a priority.
"I say women for a reason: Many mothers are single.."
Let me guess... By no fault of their own...
8
Everything has a Price Tag attached to it.
I know that's not what everyone wants to hear, but it is the brutal truth. If you don't realize this, you are in for an ugly awakening.
10
Just a thought: maybe don't have children until you can afford to take care of the children.
Is that crazy?
19
The fact that having a child is the #1 most destructive thing you can do to pollute the environment there should be penalties, not subsidies to people with their primal need to procreate. I can understand having two kids, basically replacing yourself as a taxpayer but any more than that should be heavily taxed with no tax deductions.
As a homeowner and a child free person I pay school taxes and do it without complaint, it's the right thing for a socialist to do. To all you anti-socialist dimwits, pull your kid out of publicly funded schools and pay their tuition at a private facility yourself.
5
@Paulie So we have schools in the US that are run from the capital? It tells every school what to teach, how long the school day is, how long the school year? School districts are run from independent school boards, whose people are elected from the local community. They must agree with the state they are in and finance locally. Federal money comes for specific reasons, but the feds do not pay for the schools. This is not socialism.
1
Free for all, when tacked on to an item Americans dislike paying for due to the expense, is the Democrats’ new tag line.
Medical care - free for all
College education - free for all
Day care - free for all
Housing - free for all
....
Are there enough economically illiterate voters to buy it?
At least they’ve still got the “yeah, but you’re a racist” bit.
Oops, maybe not.
11
Free daycare!! Free healthcare!! 50%+ tax rates on everyone. Keep moving left, Dems, and you'll have NO shot at the White House. Here's what I could support; Free birth control, so those who can't afford to raise children don't need to have them.
15
@Steve: Free sterilization for the victims of American education.
2
Day Care for 2 children/ family
Our country has limited fresh water and other natural resources. Much of the west is arid. The Colorado River which supplies water to 40 million people in the 7 southwestern states has been low for the last 17 years. A 1/30/19 NYT article is titled "Tough Times Along the Colorado River: In the face of a prolonged drought, the federal government could step in and reduce water use in the Southwest.” The media has also agonized over the depletion of the Ogallal Aquifer which underlies many of the states across the Plains. The aquifer will take centuries to refill. Much of our food is grown in California and across the Plains.
Our country is already the 3rd most populated, in a world that is bursting with 7.7 billion people. We must be careful not to encourage couples to have more than the 2 children needed to replace them. We should limit government free maternity/ paternity leave and child care to 2 children per woman.
5
Notwithstanding the merits of expanded child care, universal healthcare,etc., invoking Bernie Sanders in their support is not particularly useful. It is fine and even necessary to think big but you also must have well-developed policies and a realistic means of achieving these. Bernie had neither either during his run for president in 2016, or today. While his oratory remains filled with indignation about "millionaires and "billionaires," the funding mechanisms for universal healthcare and free college remain grossly wanting, the particulars of implementing both even more nebulous. In the wake of the lies and cynical actions of the greatest blowhard this country will have endured as its president, voters will be looking for someone in 2020 who has realistic, if far-reaching, policies to address healthcare, climate change, education, economic discepancies and the other issues so important to this county's future. I think we may have a real opportunity to address issues like family leave and child care, let's not blow it with talking points and empty rhetoric.
2
What about salaries for child care workers? 23 years after my youngest was born, prices (predominantly personnel) are not much higher. How can that be?
2
In the 50's and 60's I attended "child care" not day care provided by the San Francisco public school system. It consisted of day long preschool at my local elementary school that shifted to after school care once I started at the elementary school K-6. The staff was part career and part student teachers in a final phase of their instruction prior to becoming teachers.
This simple, logical, effective and efficient system enabled my single hard working mother to raise me with dignity and "normalcy" (illegitimacy being much, much, less acceptable in those days). She sent me off to my choice of Ivy League schools and went to her grave unable to grasp that "that's how much money I make in a week Mom, not a month".
Day care is not complicated as has been demonstrated in the past. It has been taken away from women, children, and yes men too, for the same deep dark reasons that fuel the resistance to full independent-agent citizenship for women in this country. A child is much more than the red badge of immorality that must be worn in shame. Every child is part of our own future and needs to be treated as nothing less.
3
This is one of the best writers we have. So glad to see her here. Her perspective is invaluable.
2
This so called to-do list is not based on reality. Ocasio- Cortez's proposal sounded like that of a child wishing for things in that not only did it not occur to her that things need to be paid for, it was not at all based on reality. Like the idea that in 10 years the whole country can be close to emission free. Why 10 years, that is way too long, should be no more than a year. And since this list has no relation to reality, everything is free and everything can be done, there is no reason to limit what to place on the list. Why day care where many children are cared for by one person, it would be better of each child had a personal care taker, for example. And for that matter we should do away with the problem of children needing day care by providing a generous income to all parents with small children so that they can get the attention and nurturing that only parents can provide.
7
Yes, provide childcare for pre-school aged children, but there's a better solution for school aged children: lengthen the school day.
This allows for more closely matched daily schedules of parents and kids. It also provides the opportunity to expand school curricula to include broadly applicable vocational skills, life financial skills, to reintroduction of the arts. In secondary schools, those who plan to attend college can knock out some (or more) introductory level college requirements without incurring the enormous financial burden of college tuition.
7
@Cynthia kids can come into my husband's school at 6:30 am. They can stay until 6:30 pm. How much more time do you want kids to be trapped at school? Also, teachers receive no additional pay for staying those hours to babysit the kids.
2
According to the Census Bureau, the easiest way to stay out of poverty is to wait to have kids until you're married. And yet 70% of African-American children are born out of wedlock, in households where no father is regularly present.
Free daycare, like all the other social programs aimed at poverty, will not solve this basic problem...this gaping hole in our society. What is being done to encourage responsible fatherhood? Is there a program for that?
16
@shstl
You neglect to mention that African-American men are incarcerated at significantly higher rates than whites for the same crimes. And then when released they find it harder to get paid employment. There's a large component of systemic racism in the poverty cycle of African-Americans and not offering help is another way of entrenching it.
3
Thank you Katha for bringing this issue to then forefront. Affordable child care should be very high on the progressive list, next to paid family leave ( and not the kind that borrows from your social security).
3
The Democrats have always been generous with other people's money. The problem is that this money eventually runs out.
You do not have to look farther than what is occurring in Venezuela to see that this is what our country will become if the Democrats have their way. Is this what Americans want to happen here? I met a Venezuelan couple approximately a year ago and they said it was disastrous for the country then and it has only become worse. You look at the starvation and devastation that is going on there and it has to break your heart. President Maduro is not allowing food and necessities to enter from Colombia which are desperately needed. He is evil and if you ask the people if they like their government they will say absolutely NO. Those who can leave.
Democracy may have its faults but it works. People have choices and can determine their own fates. Socialism robs people of dignity and hope. Just ask the citizens in Venezuela and they agree.
11
To this commenter who compares this to Venezuela and socialism , your premise is absurd .
Venezuela is in its current state because of the corrupt government that owns the oil industry but keeps all its profits for the dictator . Last I looked we didn’t have a dictator.
Child care is a necessity and something that we as a country need to address . Maybe the government doesn’t provide it all, maybe there is a contribution , but this narrative that you are parading is exactly what they said about Social Security and Medicare initially. These programs save people and prevent poverty . So will governmental child care assistance.
And as far as paying for things like this , why don’t we stop handing out government subsidies to the richest oil companies that don’t need it and handing out government subsidies by way of exorbitant tax breaks to the WEALTHIEST in this country ? That is downright criminal .
1
Putting forward any bill with ' for all ' is a very bad idea. This bill will be a total non-starter doomed to never being passed. Good optics and only optics. Democrats should forget everything ' for all '! Even their own ranks will rebel. Now that they have won the House, they should stick to those bills which will surely pass. Like Trump's taxes, Trump's Russian collusion, the Wall, Oversight of the Executive etc. etc. Even the Republicans would join them!
4
Whatever happened to family planning? What is wrong with working to progress to a point where you earn enough to provide for a child and their care while you are working before having one? What's wrong with that?
If someone does these things and falters, I am ready and willing to help. But don't ask me to subsidize poor planning or a lack of a plan.
14
@Glenn Thomas
Except that in many areas poor women don't have access to family planning. Perhaps you've heard of the war on Planned Parenthood and other clinics offering services to low-income women? Also, no family planning methods are foolproof, so you are always going to be penalizing women because they are ones who get pregnant, not the men. So maybe it's not that they haven't planned, per se, but that the methods are not foolproof.
Then, you skilfully evade the issue of poverty which is also tied up with my first point. Many minority women do not have access to good education and well-paid jobs, so are they supposed to never have families? Or terminate pregnancies? (Also becoming more and more difficult in many parts of the country.)
2
The average age of first birth was around 21 in 1970. It is closer to 29 now. It's not obvious to me that people made a cost-conscious decision in the past, but they definitely are doing so now:
The Times did its own survey in July of 2018. Almost 2/3rds of people surveyed who wanted to have (more) kids said the primary reason they were not was because "Child care is too expensive". (Americans Are Having Fewer Babies. They Told Us Why. https://nyti.ms/2KSrN1P)
2
Once again Katha Pollitt reminds me of a point raised by the great Socialist feminist Therese Schlesinger one hundred and twenty years ago: Bourgeois feminists can only envision their liberation within the sphere of the bourgeoisie, they merely want to remain bourgeois with rights equal to their bourgeois male partners. The fact that the system itself is oppressive is something they don't want to contemplate.
Pollitt's suggestion in its broad lines strikes me as worthwhile and valid; the fact that she she feels it's in competition with the program of the Left is a good indicator of the narrow limits she herself is willing to impose on it.
5
Government child care didn't work well in the USSR and won't work here. The left also told us fathers/men aren't necessary in child rearing, just look at communities where children are raised without fathers in their lives. No leftist contrived scheme to raise kids can beat a nuclear family with mom and dad. That is the ideal that must be encouraged.
8
@Lane in fact the “nuclear” family unit is fairly new and a product of patriarchy and the capitalism you all seem to love so much. In the days before patriarchy, children were raised by mother with grandmothers, aunts and others in the women’s community. This is supportive of the family. Locking women and children away in isolation with master father is a new and unfortunate development.
Our taxes go towards the common good-that is what it means to live in a civilized society. If you only use your car for transportation, why should you pay for sidewalks? If you have no children, and you resent paying your taxes to finance public education, would you consider uneducated children a good thing for society? How about when you have an accident or health crisis, and your savings and insurance can’t cover your medical costs? Only then would you see the benefit of subsidized help?
3
@Compassionate Society Rationale for living off the work of others
4
Daycare should not be subsidized, it should be eliminated. Forcing us to work and give our child to subpar people while we work subpar jobs only worsens us. Force employers to give five years paid leave for mothers so they can be mothers rather than slaves who are forced to give up their children to corporations.
3
Yes subsidized daycare will cost money as will healthcare, education, etc, etc ,etc. But so does excessive tax cuts for the rich individuals and corporations. Tax cuts cost plenty and pile up additional national debt. Ironically the rich don't need the tax cuts! They don't spend them, they hoard them. And the money most certainly does not "trickle down" to the working class. Wake up people. Too many harbor the illusion that one day they will become one of the one tenth of one percent that controls most of the global wealth. That is not going to happen. Vote in your own best interests and stop swallowing the nonsense being fed to you by those controlling the wealth.
6
Whatever happened to taking personal and financial responsibility for your decision to have children? Or is that concept foreign to Democrats, liberals and progressives? As usual, stick the taxpayer with the cost of your life choices. Where does it end?
16
Not only did this column convince me, I predict that free child care will be a plank on the 2020 Democratic Platform. Hopefully, that plank will also act as a nail in the coffin of the GOP, which at this point just gives me the creeps.
2
I support the pursuit of day care reform and I tend to vote conservative. All parents have a difficult decision when it comes to childcare. The expense is prohibitive and quality scarce. In most cases an entry level salary is the equivalent of a 2 child daycare bill. This is an important discussion that can have benefits in multiple vectors as the author explains, narrowing the wage gap, effective early childhood education. I do hope that stay at home mothers/fathers are not marginalized in the debate, I get that sentiment a bit from the piece. Child rearing is as important as a full time job and shouldn't be considered an afterthought/easily replaced. What a govt program should offer is the choice of a parent to continue on a career path and a repeatable experience that can be relied on.
2
KATHA, thank you thank you thank you for so elegantly putting to words and to prominence something I have been saying to my Bernie friends for years!!
When the whole "free college" really picked up steam -- even the state of New York embraced I believe -- I was the only person I knew who kept saying: "Hey wait a minute... How can we talk about free college before we've solved the problem of crippling early childhood costs?"
I was one of those mothers who had to quit work b/c the cost of childcare for two children ($26,000/year incl. late care) was more than it was worth. My work as a full-time editor was paying only $35,000/year after taxes. Why go through the exhaustion of working full time to only bring home $9,000 a year?
8 hrs work plus 2 hrs commute, I'd see my kids 2 waking hrs a day. With only 2 weeks' vacation, I'd use vacation days everytime one of them is sick or has a fever, or everytime a lice nit is found or someone threw up (even if you're sure it was from bad food) -- mandatory 24 hrs at home. Given how often these things happen, I would have used up my ENTIRE 2 weeks' vacation just dealing w/ doc appointments and sick days and never had any vacation at all -- not that we could have afforded one anyway.
I think you put your finger on it: Young activists are so focused on their own limited life experiences, they fail to see what really matters to the majority of people. And the fact is, America is the most anti-family country in the entire Western world.
11
Publicly funded daycare is one of the best ways to help young families get started just when spending is high and careers are beginning. In the Province of Quebec, publicly funded daycare has been established decades ago and is considered one of the most helpful social programs.
It also encourages people to have children and makes a positive cultural statement about the value of children and healthy young families in society.
A bonus is it may help the labor shortage foreseen in the coming decades.
7
Love the idea. But really, this is America. Like healthcare, Democrats will promise it every election for 40 years but use no actual political capital in order to make it happen.
And in the off chance, some brave President actually makes it happen, the actual legislation will be so watered down, that it every bit as prohibitively expensive as it was before. And of course, the Republicans will repeal it the first chance they get.
6
Infants under age 1 do NOT belong in childcare.
Developmentally, there are important tasks during infancy (attachment) that daycare makes harder. Further, even with a loving provider, a 1:4 ratio will never be close to the 1:1 dyadic attachment experience that an infant needs.
Key are empathy, attention and rapid responses which cement the attachment relationship. Babies under about 2 are RIGHT brain creatures. The only "school" for the R brain is the attachment relationship.
"Daycare" and "preschool" are terms used interchangeably for 6 week olds and three year olds -- completely different beasts.
Some day America will notice the dramatic worsening of child mental health since the rise of daycare for infants a generation ago.
8
Bread and circuses - more for everybody!
Everybody wants more stuff - we know that. And there is good stuff to be had.
We need to have a different discussion - what are the national priorities? Shoring up social security, or free tuition? Healthcare of all, or day care for all? Job retraining, or infrastructure rebuilds?
And then, how to pay for it.
The Times' focus on single issues, making the case for more public goods - without a discussion of the underlying economic realities - does a disservice to the realities of the fiscal and political moment we are in.
Governor Cuomo last week lamented that the bottom was dropping out of the State budget - because, he surmised, the rich are leaving because of the SALT cap.
"Tax the Rich" is a great bumper sticker, but NYCHA is crumbling, the subway is a relic, the streets are impassible, the homeless problem has surged. NYC spending has surged by over 20% under the current administration, an increase which has made no appreciable difference in the standard of living - but has prompted calls for even more spending and problems.
"The Rich" are now fleeing, and yet somehow the answer comes down to "we need more free stuff for more people."
Just more polarizing conversation.
11
Babel, this is the same type of thing we are dealing with in NY. It should be called the "to-don't" list. My wife and I never asked for help with daycare expenses and we did not make anything like the numbers you cited. Of course we made coffee at home and did not have to stop at Starbucks, etc. every day!
9
Bingo! This, combined with a robust maternity leave is a winner. Post pregnancy care has a staggering impact unless you are very very wealthy.
It also derails a womans career. I've seen many of my colleagues wives, with advanced degrees, get knocked out of the work force after having a couple of kids.
The question is how it is organized. In Canada, we have public day care of vastly different quality. The high quality centres have waiting lists that you have to sign up for when a period is missed. The bad ones mean your kid is sitting in soiled diapers for hours. You also want the centre close to work, not home.
Is this where vouchers come into play?
3
Ms Pollitt demonstrates a great understanding of how universal child care could impact on society's quality of life for the better.
The goals and the outcomes are potentially so important in the positive that they demand a more comprehensive presentation. Americans should welcome a choice of how to allocate their tax money and a proposal such as that made by Ms Pollitt gives us an opportunity to do so.
But in order to make a choice, we need facts and alternatives.
How much would universal child care cost? Does the cost add another 30% to the cost of Social Security or is the cost more comparable to the F35 program, or the cost of the 100 least needed military bases abroad? How does it compare to oil or farm subsidies? What ranges of cost fund what level of services? What % of the American people could be reached at each level?
Assuming that the program would want qualified providers of universal child care services, salaries as well as accountability will be higher than current standards. Middle class Americans should welcome this as much as poorer Americans. Would the higher salaries create net economic growth or would the economic impact turn out to be a progressive version of trickle down economics?
Ms Pollitt puts forward a timely and important socio/economic issue of potentially transformative social impact. One worthy of some additional information gathering and further discussion.
2
What’s so great about full time day care? You miss so much during those precious first years of your child’s life. I was a single working mom and my daughter was in all-day daycare from the age of 2 on. Does that amount of time in day care impact kids? Well, my daughter has said she hopes to be a stay at home mom when she has kids. I’d rather see more opportunities for flexible work schedules and more work-at-home options for women.
7
In the first four months after the birth of their *first* child, parents should each receive a support payments of 50% of their previously declared income, allowing either the lower earner to stay home or the couple to share parenting duties by reducing their hours worked.
Thereafter, New Family Care should cover 150 hours of childcare per month for a couple that is new to parenting, and 90 hours of childcare per month if one of the parents has prior parenting experience (until the child is old enough for preschool or kindergarten)
We should invest in a stable families at this stressful point when couples are at most risk of splitting up and putting the kid in a shared custody situation.
Parents will be able to make informed decisions when they consider whether they are ready to have additional children, since they will already be familiar with the effort and cost involved.
3
I have been saying this for years. Single mothers who work are in a bind. Couples with small children have few daycare options. Alternative childcare is outrageously expensive, and sometimes not managed well. The grandmothers who were able to babysit all week long are few and far between in this generation.
Combining working at home with parenting is not always a
great solution and neither job
gets full attention.
The best run daycare I have observed as a teacher, was at domestic military bases. Many of the children’s mothers and fathers were working to supplement their spouses’
pay. Yes, daycare run by the government can work.
We will get to this one day because we cannot keep stressing out young families. Unfortunately, many are thinking that we don’t have to address this problem.
We do.
3
And where will all the child care workers come from? Where I live, it’s difficult to hire someone for almost any job not requiring a college degree.
7
"..universal affordable high-quality child care."
Also, universal affordable high-quality college and universal affordable high-quality health care.
The question emerges where to get money to hire high-quality personnel in great numbers - because to be universal it means great numbers - for such type of things?
4
As a young working mother in France with two children, we lived in a comfortable, but by no means spacious apartment. When I saw my old friends in the US in the summer, most of them were already living in impressive houses in the suburbs with all mod cons. However some of my female friends told me they couldn’t “afford” to work and others were stressed about finding good and affordable childcare, maternity leave and healthcare costs, vacation time to visit relatives and friends, and the looming costs of higher education for their children - all of which were things my husband and I paid high taxes for, but which contributed immeasurably to our quality of life.
I may have sometimes envied all those bathrooms, walk-in closets, and designer kitchens but in the end would never have traded the “important stuff” like childcare to have them.
15
Absolutely. It was a critical issue 30 years ago when I had a child — expensive even on a middle-class income — and has only gotten worse in the ensuing years. It is also complicated. Most child care workers, whether working for a company or self-employed, need a living income, no co-pay health care, pensions, training and oversight. Single parents and families need relief. The cost of child care should not be yet another impediment to having a family and a living wage.
4
My job doesn’t pay enough to afford a family or much else so I don’t get to have those things. I haven’t earned them. We need to get over this widespread entitlement mentality before it destroys our work ethic. We can’t all be Ivy grads with ever-increasing pay and bright futures. Someone needs to stock shelves, collect shipping cars, fix flats, unload trucks, answer phones and patrol warehouses. Since none of those jobs require a college education, there isn’t a financial stake to justify much of a lifestyle.
9
@From Where I Sit, I'm not an Ivy grad and most of the people who need decent, affordable child care are not even in the middle class, much less the 1%. As to how to pay for it, replace the 2017 billionaire tax cut with equitable, progressive taxation on the wealthy and corporations; that will free up common resources for child-care and a host of programs that benefit all.
1
@VisaVixen
Jeff Bezos, to use one example, does not owe a thing to anyone other than his (soon to be ex) wife and their two kids. Certainly not to me. I’ll never understand the lack of conscience that must be necessary to accept having the government confiscated another’s property to provide me something I’m not entitled to whether that is healthcare or housing or education.
3
Not to mention that good childcare helps a lot of kids who wouldn’t get the same learning and activities at home — it can make a big difference to the lifelong achievement of that child as early learning and care has been proven to be a strong indicator on success.
If I were wealthy, I would just start a program somewhere in the US, ideally in a lower income neighborhood because the need to work for parents and the burden of childcare costs is higher. I would pay good salaries to the workers, complete with proper vacation days and sick days, as well as a pension or something similar. Kids would get free, quality food. Breakfast, snack, lunch and afternoon snack. I would even make it that Fridays they could take home some healthy food for the weekend if they wanted. Do outings like kid museum days etc. Have adequate playground equipment and play outside. Let’s see the results of those kids compared to others. Then try to argue why we shouldn’t fund something like that. We have the money. We just need to get the tax burdens right (the trumps and the buffets etc actually have to pay their fair share — buffet would without whining).
Side note: My child at 2.5 goes to kindergarten here in Germany. Cost: zero. When my one year old will go I will pay about 110 euros a month (after 2 it is free). We do have to pay for lunch (cooked locally, hot, 3 euros) but snack is free.
6
@An American In Germany: Kindergarten is 100% free in every US state, city and village. A few areas now have free preK.
Are you aware of the Federal free lunch program, which gives both free breakfast AND free lunch to about 55% of all US schoolchildren?
The same kids who already get food stamps -- as much as an adult gets! -- even for a 5 year old?
Why do you want to feed children who already get 10 meals a week FREE, plus food stamps?
1
Very sensible, but what is this talk about "partners" and single parents? Children need two parents, married to each other, husband and wife.
9
Yes! Part of the pact - that allows Scandinavian countries to provide so well for their citizens (including such luxuries as healthcare) is the understanding that everyone (men and women equally) needs to be working and contributing money into the system. Those countries are keenly aware that -in order for that to happen, there must be really great, affordable daycare. If we really want to be a great nation, that can provide for our citizens, then we need to start providing child care.
8
There are three underlying reasons why people are on public assistance. Lack of: health care, lack of transportation, and lack of child care.
In the richest country in the world.
8
Yes, but if we provide childcare for our citizens, there won't be room in the budget for Republican tax cuts for the rich.
7
Wasn’t this compelling issue something that Ivanka, with her outsized influence on her “Boss” and self-proclaimed ironclad commitment to the plight of working mothers, was supposed to have taken care of? What gives?
7
"The child care crisis has a huge effect on women’s employment. It keeps women at home who need and want to work."
After all these decades, we still wrongly thing that caring for children is women's work, and that parents who stay home to raise their very young children are contributing nothing to the economy or society. We continue to perpetuate the myth that the only work that matters is work done in offices and factories.
It's time we recognize that work done in the home has genuine economic and social value. Let's make room in our career trajectories for time to devote to childrearing and managing a household that is occupied by young children. Our economy and our society reap enormous benefits from this important work.
Meanwhile, let's finally admit that the "feminist dream" of institutionalized childhood is a nightmare that brought us adults who have no idea how to manage their own lives because virtually every minute of their childhoods and adolescence were micromanaged by childcare providers. Gone are the days when kids are allowed to just be kids.
6
Even if families were to find affordable day care for children, what kinds of jobs will be there - those that have been outsourced, automated or low paying service jobs? And what about workers who have to quit their jobs to care for an elderly relative who cannot be left alone at home? We also need daycare for seniors.
5
Only one more state is needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. I would think that legal framework would support many initiatives that would benefit children as well as liberating women.
And if the 1971 bill passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support, then how was Congress unable to override Nixon’s veto?
4
@Cedarcat: the Equal Rights Amendment DIED in 1983.
The Amendment specifically and clearly had a 10 year expiration period in which you could pass it or it would disappear.
Ratifying it now, would just be a meaningless gesture with no legal consequence.
If you want ANOTHER ERA…..you must start all over again.
1
A lot of the 'personal responsibility' commentators to this column (many, if not most of whom I suspect completed their child rearing decades ago, or had a spouse who didn't work, or both) are really blind to the 21st century realities here. This is hardly a "welfare queen" issue. My wife and I are highly educated and make comfortably in excess of $250,000. We're very 'responsible'. Even with that backdrop, the cost of full time childcare when we return to work after having a baby is sobering - and alarmingly close to impossible in the case of two children. The economy and culture has changed for everyone. Employers (and their clients) expect 24 hour accessibility from employees and advanced education is absurdly expensive (student loans really push the monthly budget of +1 childcare to the wall).
If I could barely do it, how much 'responsibility' can I reasonably expect from another family who doesn't have the same resources? Aren't societal needs like this exactly what government should be doing? I think the failure to address this stuff while giving the ultra-rich generous tax breaks (and the middle class, merely marginal ones) is exactly why there is so much brewing sentiment in favor of socialist policies (which would be a bad turn for our country, in my opinion). This issue isn't going away, and is just as pressing as other topics getting more government attention.
9
Perhaps those who aren’t making even a fraction of $250k shouldn’t be having children they cannot afford. Hey, I might have liked to have started a family four decades ago but my job not only wouldn’t fund it, my boss (now the company owner) frowned on it because of the distraction it caused. I work 65-72 hours it more a week and any commitment outside of work would have negative consequences on my performance.
3
@From Where I Sit Yeah, I mean the "well, you should have thought of that" point of view is easy enough to understand. And it's true, choices have consequences. Just the black and white approach sure makes for a hard society, though. I personally think we would have been better of if, four decades ago, our country's policies served your personal interests a little more, even at the expense of your boss's. Those tax cuts were awfully expensive, who's paying for that? And what am I personally getting out of it?
1
@Martin And if this scheme ever comes to fruition, they'll be coming for your pocketbook first. To them, you are "the rich."
1
Hillary was right. We are not Denmark.
But we should be.
We are the richest industrial country on the planet GDP / capita.
We have poverty Denmark doesn't have.
They have better schools for the working class.
They have universal healthcare.
We have parts of the US with infant mortality rates of a second world country.
We have the highest incarceration rate in the world.
We also have the greatest economic divide since the Gilded Age.
Thank you Republican tax cuts for the rich.
And it is not coincidence that our greatest economic divide is at the same time we have our greatest political divide.
Countries like Denmark and the rest have faced the same globalization we have. Germany in known for high-tech manufacturing and has an unemployment rate of 3.5%.
After 35 years of trickle-down Reaganomics, we got an opioid crisis.
13
@Independent Be a man and pay it for yourself
1
While we're at it, let's consider daycare at the other end of the lifespan.
How many workers--typically women--find their careers curtailed by need to care for a parent or spouse with dementia? Not only careers are sacrificed, but also mental health--depression is very common in caregivers.
So what about daycare centers where a person with dementia may be left for the day? We found such a place for my father for a while, and it was wonderful--daily group discussions based on the local newspaper, daily hikes and singing, board games, communal lunchtime. The socialization and activity was so much better than letting your loved one languish in front of a tv at home.
And of course, it would create more jobs. A win, win, win situation.
10
I am stupified that I didn't think of this sooner. We just had our first kid and my wife has to stay home (between the two of us, I make more) because we can't find anything remotely affordable, or of good quality. This has hindered her getting hours for her certification test and will slow her earning potential.
I'd support daycare for all before I supported free college.
11
Like domestic workers and other mostly female occupations, child care workers are underpaid. It would be a giant step toward reality for us to recognize the need for better pay. It ups the cost, but that's the reality check part. Some of those super executive salaries could spare some change for their employees' child care expenses. Or if it is a federal program how about a little defense department budget trimming?!
Pollitt is right again, as usual. It is time for high quality, affordable child care to be at the top of the agenda. Let's get those right-wing naysayers to stop and think about how the lack of it is affecting them. Not all of the naysayers are rich enough not to care!
8
Anyone who says we can't afford this needs to remember that this government found a way to pay for it when it needed women at work, during World War II (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/daycare-world-war-rosie-riveter/415650/). When the men came home, the government-subsidized centers closed and women were put back in "their" place: barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
If we did it once, successfully, we can do it again.
And for those who think, "why should my tax dollars go toward someone else's kids?" please remember that those kids will grow up, and be your doctors, congresswomen, presidents, fave authors and filmmakers, nursing home attendants, baristas, professors ....
11
@OMGchronicles
We have to do better than we did during WWII. There were some model child care centers subsidized by the government or by industry, but most women in the work force at that time relied on family members and other private arrangements. It was inadequate then, and it's worse now.
2
If we had negative population growth, we could fill our needs with targeted immigration and completely avoid those costs.
1
@Emily Yes, we can and must do better. I was just hopeful to remind people that if the government truly recognized the importance in supporting families (yes, children exist!) now, as it did then, it would prioritize policies to do that again, but version 2.0.
Here's a progressive idea: we don't need more kids on this planet. So if you choose to have kids, do it right. But don't expect the rest of your progressive friends to foot the bill, and don't expect a tax cut.
18
@anonymouse
Thank you.
We also need to revise the federal tax code so that childfree aren't paying more than childed -- that's pure discrimination. The societal benefits of remaining childfree are vast and automatic; the societal benefits of producing offspring are iffy at best.
Same with SS -- people who create greater liabilities should pay in more. No one is ever going to claim minor disability, minor survivor or caregiver payouts on my account -- why shouldn't people with kids pony up?
6
@Earthling Couldn't agree more. Even at work we pay more by filling in for women out on maternity leave. I work much later so moms can take time off to have children. Back from maternity leave, they go home earlier than anyone else with the full support of the office, "well she has a kid to pick up".
9
@anonymouse
Not to mention health care premiums. Where I work, families -- even those with three, four, more children -- pay little more than solos do in the employee share of health insurance costs. We -- as usual -- are subsidizing them.
They like to say "our kids will pay your Social Security" without acknowledging that we are ALSO paying FICA taxes -- for more than 50 years by the time I retire -- that support non-working spouse benefits, minor disability benefits, minor survivor benefits and minor caregiver benefits -- that only they benefit from.
So tired of the entitled mentality. Maybe producing offspring was a societal benefit in 1850 but in 2018 it's a liability. There are plenty of people on earth and we can import high-quality workers and consumers ad infinitum, without rolling the dice on producing more little dependent Walmart shoppers domestically.
7
This is indeed an important issue for all Americans whether you are a parent, or not. Want to make a difference? Support the Child Care for Working Families Act ( H.R.3773- 115th Congress) Sponsored by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). It addresses this issue on multiple levels and includes providing high quality,affordable child care from birth through 13.
Go check it out! Then go and see who has signed onto the bill thus far. Email or call your Congressional representative and your Senators . Talk to them about this bill . It will only take a couple of minutes and yet you really can have an impact. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue; this is about our children, our families and our future.
Deborah Colette Murphy
4
People shouldn’t have kids unless they can afford them. “Free” child care is not free. You and I will pay for it. Let’s fully fund family planning instead.
13
Crying because you have to stay home to take care of your children. Some people can't even have children. They would gladly trade places.
5
If you cannot take care of your children on your own without help from the government, then you should not have children.
You and you alone are responsible for your children.
13
When I suggested to my late wife that we could split a year of parental leave available in Canada, she stared at me incredulously and said, "If anyone's taking time off [work], it's me!" More recently I had a child with a woman who has more chance of a good job than me, being younger and more educated. I suggested I take care of the child while she works, but she prefers to work the courts to extract money from me. She's far too busy teaching a three-year-old that her father is a "bad man" and a "monster" to look for work. The feminist dogma that women are chomping at the bit to leave their children and go to work defies my experience with every mother I've ever met.
3
@Jeff White
Agree with you -- but have you considered taking charge of your own fertility via sterilization or condom use? Why produce children in these dysfunctional, hostile relationships??
2
High quality daycare, perhaps as part of the public school system, would cost a fair amount of money but yield many times the initial investment. Studies have shown that the brain of a one year-old is closer in structure to that of an adult than that of a newborn. So much critical anatomy is being built in the first year of life that subpar care can cause irreparable damage. Children coming from challenged families will lack the basic neurological wiring to succeed in life.
By getting all children into a high quality environment from the beginning we would have a real shot at ending generational poverty. Imagine the savings of a much smaller prison population and the increased revenue from a more productive society! The biggest roadblock is, of course, political. The 18 years it would take to realize these benefits are too far beyond the vision of most people, especially those in office for four to eight years.
The old argument that child rearing is the job of the family, not the community, ignores human evolution. We are a highly social species. For most of our existence, raising children was a communal effort. Even today, it still is: teachers and coaches all share in raising our children.
8
Definitely agree that society needs to do more to help cover the cost of child care. The cost I see for full time care is insane, and complete unaffordable for the average American family.
However, I also think putting a cap makes sense. For example, your first two kids are covered. If you want to have more kids, great, but society shouldn’t have to fund massive families.
7
If we are a civil and humane society we would embrace solutions to this problem.
Is that America today?
Concentrating more wealth in the hands of the few is not.
1
Since the birth of my son 7 months ago and the subsequent departure of my wife from the labor force, I have been trying to figure out why the market for child care seems to be in a disequilibrium.
It is a fact that it is far too expensive for the median family to afford. There are also wait lists for infant care that can exceed the gestational period, meaning you might need to consider putting your name on before that spermazoid has been created. When demand far exceeds supply, prices rise, which has happened.
What has not happened is anything close to a proportional increase in the supply of day car centers, which tells me either there are very high barriers to entry due to government regulation, or for some reason the high revenue stream is offset by extremely Hugh costs making this a no profit venture.
I would love for the Times to look into this as a follow up. Maybe we can enact some "predistributive" policies designed to bring prices back from the stratosphere.
3
@Brian it is not a moneymaker. That’s what government ( non-profit) is for.
1
@Cedarcat That is what I am having trouble understanding: Sky high prices and lengthy waitlists tell me the revenue streams are extraordinary. If these are not moneymakers, then something on the cost side is equally as outrageous. I'm certain it is not the labor or the capital requirements; professional standards are not high and paint, toys, and jungle gyms are relatively inexpensive.
So what is the missing piece? Fees and licenses paid to local/state governments? "Malpractice" insurance? It is a sincere question.
Agreed! Canada has successfully instituted federally subsidized Day care. In Quebec province it is approximately $5.00 (CDN) a day! It is a huge help to working families as is universal health care. It is time for the U.S. to catch up with the rest of the developed world!
4
@Scott Blair
If Quebec is part of the "developed" world, why are English-speakers still legally regarded as second-class citizens? Quebec actually has language laws that penalize English speakers. If that is your idea of "developed," count me out. Most Americans find this kind of discrimination abhorrent. Quebec is hardly a bastion of freedom and human rights.
3
This is huge. This should absolutely be at the forefront of the Democrats' platform, perhaps right behind universal health insurance, because as great and worthy as free public college is, Pollitt is right that this affects more people.
My two children are eleven years apart in age (older one 13, younger one 2), and nothing had improved in that time. A $5,000 tax credit is all but a joke, particularly given the cost of childcare in New York. In the last fifty years the society hasn't managed to catch up with the fact that the vast majority of households have by necessity become two-income households, to make ends meet. These years when children are young are a burdensome struggle in the current economy. And yet, as Pollitt also points out, caretakers are terribly underpaid! Both things need to improve. Help for parents with young children, and help for caretakers.
My feeling is what Pollitt says: we made it until my older daughter was in kindergarten and breathed a big sigh of relief, and then moved ahead with our lives, feeling like we'd survived and it was all just one of the trade-offs of being a parent. But it shouldn't be this hard for new parents, especially in the most prosperous country on earth! It's a strain not only on families but on a healthy marriage.
4
Being a responsible parent means planning for that child from the day he/she is born until they are an adult. That includes planning for daycare. As a retired teacher I am all for putting daycare under struct government controls. I am for more large companies providing reasonably priced day care at their place of business, it should put on a sliding scale according to your income. But people without children should not have to pay increased taxes for others that choose to have a child. Government should not have to take the place of responsible parent planning.
8
What next? A middle-class lifestyle for all guaranteed by government? That seems to be the goal. Anyone dealt with a motor vehicle agency lately? Or the Post Office? That's what your day care--- and your health care--- are going to look like in the future.
9
@Dougal E
"Anyone dealt with a motor vehicle agency lately? Or the Post Office? That's what your day care--- and your health care--- are going to look like in the future. "
Maybe in Republican Texas.
3
Quebec has a $10/day educational daycare system that closely follows the French system, strictly overseen by the provincial govt. (When my kids were babies it was just $5/day.) It includes numerous outings, lots of outdoor playtime, diapers, full delicious meals prepared by an in-house chef, and fun, educational activities. The pouponnière, as the nursery is called, is an incredible, warm, loving area where the babies are doted over. But babies must be at least 1 year old to be in daycare. Why? Because Canada provides paid 1-year parental leave for both parents to split however they want to care for their baby. How does the govt pay for the leave? With simple unemployment. How does it pay for daycare? Taxes, much of which comes from those many, many mothers (and fathers) who have returned to the workforce.
3
Calm down, everyone. I'm fairly certain that the title "Day Care for All" was not meant to imply FREE day care for all. As the author notes it means "affordable" (and quality) care.
Even in countries that realize the importance of helping families with this expensive and important budgetary need, parents pay something for their child care. Their costs are subsidized - as they should be.
America has a loooong way to go before we walk our talk about "family values." Affordable, quality day care for working parents is one facet of putting our money where our mouths are.
4
People around the world want to move to America, but the best and the brightest know that other countries such as Canada and Scandinavia are much smarter moves.
To compete for that most valuable resource of them all - human capital - we need to stop thinking of ourselves as so great. We are not comparatively so great. Many countries, possibly all the democratic socialist ones, are ranked higher.
The toxic capitalism of the Republicans is destroying our quality of life as well as our upward mobility. Without those you only attract lower quality people.
Affordable childcare is just one area of improvement that will make us competitive. There are many more.
7
@Fourteen
Is that your age? Because if you believe that capitalism is "toxic," I'd advise you to look at the quality of life in non-capitalist nations. And before you cite Scandinavia and the other soft-socialist nations of Europe as socialist success stories, I'd remind you that without the capitalist private companies and their employees making all the money and funding the welfare state through their taxes, they'd have no welfare state. Capitalism is the milch cow that makes it all possible.
3
@Ed L. Capitalism says people are “human capital”. Slaves. They pay as little as possible to all forms of capital while lining the pockets of the shareholders and banks.
Travel and live overseas for a few years and then speak about these issues from experience rather than propaganda.
1
@Ed L.
The capitalist as owner or shareholder wants to make as much profit as possible for themselves, not the worker. They exploit the worker to do so.
They do this by cutting costs because costs are pre-tax and every dollar cut directly increases profit by one dollar. The largest operational line item is usually COGS or input costs, and that's most often labor.
Thus labor, the People, are laid-off and replaced with a machine, or their wages and benefits are cut.
Pre-2008, owners increased profit the old fashioned way by competing better with more efficient operations. But during the 2008 recession they all kept their profit up by cutting their worker's wages and benefits. When the economy came back those wages and benefits did not. Employees became a profit center for their owners.
Capitalism has inherent contradictions and will be replaced. One contradiction is that profits increase when workers are paid less; thus the capitalist ideal is slavery. If authoritarianism replaces democracy with corporate political control (as it has), we become slaves.
Capitalist owners own the means of production and pay a subsistence wage, enough to keep the People alive to work, but not enough to save and buy their own means of competitive production.
Capitalism is slavery. But worse than the slaves, we must pay for housing, food, and healthcare - and must commute every day.
For fifty weeks of labor we are granted two weeks time-off. Shareholders are modern slave holders.
I feel like if we make one important change - a robust living wage - we then wouldn't need all of these "free" programs ( daycare, healthcare, etc) ..... because folks could afford them.
And by "robust living wage" I mean one where an adult who works 40 hours per week can afford food, transportation, housing, healthcare, and daycare ( if needed) for themselves and 1 dependent.
Everything else would take care of itself because folks would have the ability to purchase what they need.
4
@GBR
In other words, a new penalty on employers. That should improve things. There will be no consequences, of course. Prices will not go up as employers don't pass along their new penalties to their customers. Workers making your new "robust" wage will continue to pay the same for food, transportation, housing, healthcare, and daycare as if nothing had happened. And employers will be so grateful for the new penalties that they will be incentivized to hire even more workers at even higher wages, so all may have a "robust living wage."
I notice that you're from New England. Are you Elizabeth Warren in disguise?
5
Wages cannot be uniformly implemented and regulated. The current federal minimum wage is a sick joke! National standards for day care and health care can be more effectively instituted. This is not an issue of resources, it is an issue of national political will.
@Ed L.
Are you kidding? I'm a barely left-of-center moderate. I like the idea of a robust wage as a means to decrease governmental "programs", dependency, and escalating taxes.
3
She's right. It's good for the mothers. It's good for home finances. It's good for tax revenues. It's good for the children who get a head start on education. Therefore, it's great for the nation.
6
Second Bill of Rights (FDR) under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all — regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
* The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
* The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
* The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
* The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
* The right of every family to a decent home;
* The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
* The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
* The right to a good education.
He didn't add education from birth to the education, but women didn't work.
2
"... these supposedly pie-in-the-sky proposals ... have entered the political mainstream as important topics of discussion."
Like many liberals, Pollitt neglects to consider who is going to pay for that "pie". In particular, Pollitt never mentions liability insurance or taxes.
"... a living wage: .... But there’s another proposal ... universal affordable high-quality child care."
Define "affordable" and explain how that doesn't conflict with "a living wage".
"The high cost of child care doesn’t even have the silver lining of providing decent jobs for child care workers, ..."
Pollitt should explain why those "costs" are so "high".
4
@EGK
I've noticed that Republicans always have a "Scarcity Mindset," whereas Progressives have an "Abundance Mindset."
Probably explains why Republicans are all so selfish.
In response I simply say, look at the Canadian paradigm!
@Fourteen
Let me explain. Progressives see only solutions, where conservatives (rightly) see only tradeoffs. Name one societal problem that has ever been solved by throwing more money at it, without a few winners and a whole lot of losers and unintended consequences. Come on .... I'll wait.
Is anyone talking about the quality of care? When my spouse and I considered having children, I did not like the idea of having a stranger responsible for a child during the developmental years. Does everyone just assume that group childcare is just as good for children as what they would receive from an attentive parent?
12
Do I assume group childcare is as good as a parent’s care? With 2 kids in daycare, I don’t have to assume. I KNOW my daycare provides far better care than I could ever give myself. Our teachers are college educated, trained in early childhood development, & offer my kids socialization with 20 other kids their age 5 days a week. It would take thousands of dollars and hours of (unpaid) labor for me to recreate the daycare experience at home. And the daycare ladies have assistants & mandated breaks! The gym mats my kids play on in class cost $1200 for the basic set. A lot more cost efficient to purchase as a daycare w/hundreds of kids vs. my 2.
Ever notice the biggest critics of daycare are the people who have never used it themselves?
2
I am a 56 year old woman with post grad degree making $160K a year helping to manage a major infrastructure project. Considering walking away from it all to help my daughter & her husband with childcare. Its an existential issue for me - what is more important: accumulating more money to buy stuff and assure a "high standard" of living now and in retirement, or assisting my grandson to have a stable family and to know me - instead of me being that lady who sends checks. In case no one has noticed, family making among millennials is WAY DOWN due to cost of housing, low pay and costly health and childcare. How is this a good thing? The economy is good for many, but it is not great for those not working in tech or in finance, and school debt can be all consuming. So, someone like me who is a vital cog in the labor machine, might just step out of it to help the next generation. Another example of a woman taking an economic hit? Maybe. Or maybe I am just tired of how awful the new economy/workplace has become since the great downsizing and this is good excuse to offboard.
6
@Patricia J.
Sounds like you are trying to find a way to be a martyr; "Another example of a woman taking an economic hit". Or maybe a grandmother that wants to retire. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Why don't you just keep your job and pay for the daycare for your grandchild or retire and enjoy being involved with the grandchild. No need to make it look like you're throwing yourself on a grenade to save the family.
1
How about one week European vacations for all Americans?
8
We have four children and we both work: https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-first-in-germany-to-scrap-child-day-care-fees/a-44883019
1
There is a crying need to put Congress and the President in daycare. Cry babies and sore losers may be separated to prevent contagious ignorance.
7
Today's Post:
https://nypost.com/2019/02/09/many-of-nycs-day-cares-are-safety-hazards-for-children-investigation/
"Free" affects quality and quantity. Please stop with the free stuff. You notice we don't call it "medicaid-for-all", I wonder why not.
4
@Rfam et al - you forget all the unsexy free stuff our government provides and is taken for granted.
US Postal service
Roads and rest stops
Food and drug safety
Public health management
Airport safety
Parks (not just the “camping” ones, but institutions like the Smithsonian and the Gateway Arch.
Car and Airplane safety
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
We are a SOCIETY, we pool our resources for the greater good. Not just the specific resources we decide we should fund.
2
As long as Republicans argue to reduce taxes on the wealthy and corporations, you will get nothing and like it. Cannot stand progressives ideas like this when progressives cannot win anything to have control to get their agenda even started.
I argue again and again that until white women stop voting Republican like they always have, you will get crumbs. Americans are brainwashed to believe that the American system of mediocrity for all, is any good. As long as my fellow Americans are brainwashed to believe lies, America will be mediocre
1
Free birth control and abortion for all, I can get behind.
Supporting and rewarding the optional lifestyle choice of parenthood with even more perks and tax dollars, no.
Let parents team up with one another and figure it out. Co-ops, home day care, tag teaming on opposite shifts, whatever. Keep your paws out of my wallet.
10
@Earthling
Agreed Earthling.
1
Right on!
2
Sure. Universal day care. Make babies and abdicate your responsibility to the government or private employers. Who will pay for that? Who care? Democrats like free stuff. Remember the Obama phone lady? Google her. Handouts for all. The party of Santa Claus will blow up our economy if they get a chance. They would run a lemonade stand into the ground if they could.
4
Another pie-in-sky Socialist give away that will raise my taxes! I oppose it! Isn't that why abortion is legal, so women don't have to bear these children who cramp in style? Thank you.
8
In no world ‘everything is free’. There are no easy solutions and the country can’t afford to have ‘free everything’. Already, federal state and local consumer 40-50% of each pay check. Add in sales, car registration and if you owe a house property taxes, you can easy pay 50-60% of each dollar earned in taxes. Enough is enough. Individuals and families in this country need take responsibility for their own development by getting educated, acquiring skills, take care of themselves physically and stay healthy. New York State has a great community and state college system that is cost effective and 2/3 of American are over weight from simply eating too much which cause chronic disease and causing many healthcare cost issues. These are individual choices people make and no amount of government central planning will solve them.
4
As parenthood has been a choice since 1973 and will hopefully remain so, I'm not entirely certain why those of us who choose not to reproduce are asked to cost share with those who do. Making productive individuals out of those who are already here through education makes economic sense, infant to school age daycare might as well, but child tax credits for married couples bringing in 400k? Abolishing such nonsense would pay to better educate the next generation, lift the single mother closer to equality with free child care, and at the same time stop rewarding the mere act of reproduction. Parents, however, must also bear some economic consequence for choosing to reproduce, otherwise our planet killing propensity for reproduction rates above the replacement rate isn't going to stop. The government won't buy me a boat, a dog, or a ski vacation, why should it buy me a baby?
9
Whatever the merits of this proposal, I am starting to be very worried that the Democratic party's campaign slogan for the next election will be: "Everything for everybody". As much as Howard Schultz's entry as an independent angers me, I have to concede that he is correct in saying that we need a moderate centrist and not what is now being described as a "Progressive".
4
I think Ms Pollitt left out an important part the equation in her opinion, how she would pay for child care for all. It has already been established that there aren’t enough rich people to soak in order to pay for all these social benefits. Why limit yourself with technicalities. Who wouldn’t want to give child care to all, a wonderful idea! The question is, if the country could afford it. Like our home life, sometimes you have say no I can’t afford that. And before we get into full blown relativism and say look at the spending on the other side, two wrongs don’t make a right. I would like to every wish to come with a price tag and a thought of where the money will come from, like my house.
2
I agree with the author that we should have free, fully regulated and licensed, nurturing day care for young children; studies have shown it is critical that young kids are read to often at a very young age, as it is essential in their cognitive development.
That is a practical issue that is worth doing.
However, I somewhat disagree philosophically with the implications here. I think health care is a right. I think having a decent and complete education is a right.
I do *not* think there is a right to have children. I think that is a privilege and a very grave responsibility and should not be for everyone. And I think it is important as a society we impart the idea that putting another life in this world means you are no longer just you.
Besides, we have a climate crisis. Every child born into this world will inevitably leave a substantial carbon footprint. I don't think now is the right time to be having lots of children.
5
No, raising children is not a lifestyle choice. It is the point of living.
@Samantha
It may be your reason for living Samantha, but it is not everyone's reason. You bring a child into this world, you support that child on your own. Leave the rest of us out of it.
3
Great idea! Wrong country!
Look people, we don't live in Sweden.
We just elected DJT, (take a hint), and at the rate the Dems are going, they are going to re-elect him.
Having been born here and with 60yrs of experience, I can safely say the average American is an individualistic jerk.
“Reason is what engenders egocentrism, and reflection strengthens it. Reason is what turns man in upon himself. Reason is what separates him from all that troubles him and afflicts him. Philosophy is what isolates him and what moves him to say in secret, at the sight of a suffering man, ‘Perish if you will; I am safe and sound.’”
J.J. Rousseau
1
Everything for Everybody - Immediately!
6
Really..”create lots of jobs”....missing how that factors into this equation...
Let’s actively promote birth control to eliminate unwanted pregnancies...
Unfortunately too many of the unwanted pregnancies end up on welfare rolls
Darwin..not the strongest or the smartest but the quickest to
If Corporate Democrats get their claws into this it will be utterly useless. Nancy Pelosi's office was caught this week bending their knee to Blue Cross Blue Shield telling them she will fight to her very last breath to keep Medicare for all out of Congress.
1
Democrats are infected with the same affliction as Trump which is Reality Detachment Syndrome. How many times does socialism have to fail before reality sinks in? Go ahead, Democrats, dream big and give Trump precisely what he needs to win in 2020. The socialist manifesto is nothing more than a hippy dream that despite repeated failures always seems to develop a new generation of supporters. Venezuela, a rich little country that dreamed that dream, is stuck in a hippy nightmare.
2
Venezuela, right. You left out Greece.
Look around. More people than not live under democratically elected “socialist” governments in the rest of the industrialized world. Far from failure, it’s the most successful model of economic governance ever invented. Unlike libertarianism, which is just a thought experiment, democratic socialism has been embraced by millions over decades, to their popular and undeniable benefit.
“...child care crisis...”
You must be kidding. What crisis? If you can’t take care of your own children, or make your own arrangements to care for them, why have them in the first place? Why should taxpayers foot the bill for someone else’s children? Why can’t the Progressive whiners and complainers take care of themselves and their own children instead of expecting someone else to shoulder their responsibilities?
7
Taxpayers should foot the bill because the median wage earner hasn’t seen a raise in 4 decades. The economy has grown 128%, but none of that prosperity is shared by the middle class. The effect is that raising kids is more expensive than ever, and that simple things like home ownership require 2 salaries.
You can raise wages — not by 2% or 6%, but 128%, give or take — or you can subsidize expenses those wages would (and used to) pay for. If you don’t, you’re advocating suffering for the sake of the wealthy. Just to be clear on the point.
1
@James K. Lowden
James you pay for it all. Leave the rest of us out of it. If people choose to have children, it is their responsibility to raise them without help from their neighbors.
2
Another step to '' Make America Liveable again ! ''
Can we stop using the word “free”? To be honest, let’s say “taxpayer paid” or “paid for by people other than the beneficiary”, because nothing is free.
6
The New York Times did well this week in publishing Pollitt and Collin who both addressed childcare and mommy issues. Thank you.
4
I had to stop reading for a while to take a breath when I came upon that quote about “the vast moral authority of the national government“. You might say it grabbed me by whatever it is that our current national leader says he likes to grab people by.
Though all the article’s references are to Western Europe, I worry about ending up with a “Christian” version of the Muslim world’s madrassas, where the goal is to create mindless fanatics.
Who will decide the curriculum for government daycare? We could end up with a generation of kids as dumb as a Republican congressman.
2
@Charlie B
"We could end up with a generation of kids as dumb as a Republican congressman."
Or more likely, a generation of kids as dumb as public-school dropouts. Or is public education -- that cornerstone of "progressivism" -- a ringing success in your world? What makes you think that a bureaucracy of public daycare centers would be any different than the bureaucracy of public schools?
Yup, day care for all. Free healthcare, free college, guaranteed higher wage -- even if you don't work or work at something nobody wants or needs and free care for children. Everyone on day care. For everything. The rallying cry of the left.... Day Care for All!!
Do not have children if you cannot afford it. It's a huge responsibility and having enough money coming in is just the start.
People who want children need to take serious responsibility for what they are doing. Relying on other people's money is about the worst thing you could do.
9
Do not get old if you can’t afford it. Living is a great responsibility, and relying on other people’s money is about the worst thing you can do.
If you want to evaluate it just in fiscal terms — which is pretty myopic, but that’s up to you — isn’t it possible the the increased lifetime earnings of the more productive woman, whose career isn’t put on hold or sidelined to raise children, results in increased productivity and thus greater lifetime taxes paid, more than enough to cover the cost of daycare?
Great idea get someone else to raise them better still if it is not that important for the parents to raise there children then maybe you should not consider having children. Then someone else would not have to pay to raise your children.These proposals sound great but has anyone thought about how you are going to pay for them. In England there is a shortage of both doctors and nurses because the nationalized health care system does not pay these professionals enough. The sacrifice is to great for the reward and so many people decide not to go into those professions.
3
The concept of high quality day care for free is not the best solution. The best solution is to have a parent home with a child. To let the children play outside in the neighborhood with other kids from the community. It is to build "community" and learn to communicate with and appreciate other people.
A stipend does this much more effectively than free day care. The reality is that the most important job a parent can do is raise a quality child. One who respects others and themselves. One who knows the difference between right and wrong. One who does not blame others or act in racist and misogynistic ways.
The age of automation and AI is here. Many of the jobs people do are meaningless and way less valuable than parenting. Time to stop feeding the 1%ers dream of increased output and start to focus on building human community and a healthier world.
6
Interesting article. And one doesn't have to go very far for inspiration. Just look north to the province of Quebec. We have had subsidized day care for fifteen years or so and the results have been dramatic. It began at seven dollars a day (!) and now I believe it is still lower than fifteen dollars a day. It is no secret that in North America today both parents must work to maintain even a semblance of middle class life. 90% subsidized day care has caused a surge in the percentage of women participating in the work force. Family income has increased. Women's enrollment in universities has increased. It may sound like a small first step, but it does have huge and positive consequences.
8
This all started with giving women the right to vote. Its been downhill for society since then. (partial sarcasm)
2
Day care for all is so vital for poor and middle class working parents, as is free higher education and affordable healthcare, plus rebuilding our infrastructure.
The constant question on how to pay for it seems to stop moderates and conservatives from supporting these ideas (though $5 billion for a wall seems no problem to fund). Here are simple ways to pay for it and promote sound economic policy:
1. Raise short term capital gains taxes to 80% (any gain on a trade done under one year) and 90% tax on day trades. This simple tax would almost eliminate the speculation and subsequent crashes in our financial markets.
2. Eliminate 1031 exchanges where real estate investors (not home owners here) avoid capital gains taxes. This is a huge tax break for real estate moguls (Trump for one) and skews the economy to real estate bubbles.
3. An AMT on corporate income (alternative minimum tax that right now hits upper income individuals). Minimum corporate tax would be 10% on worldwide income.
4. 3% Wealth Tax on all taxable entities (individuals, trusts, foundations, corporations, LLCs, partnerships, off shore accounts as well) worth over $100 million. If the wealthy can pay their hedge fund 3% a year, certainly they can afford a wealth tax.
Democrats need a TOTAL tax proposal to fund their priorities, but smart taxes that will actually help economic policy.
7
When pigs fly we will have daycare for all. We the people who don’t think healthcare for all is a good idea are going to pay babysit The Others children? The same society that does not fund public education properly is going to go for this one? Although a great idea one can see the fake conservatives on The Right claiming it to be socialism. The Fake Conservatives can’t use The word Communism any more to scare their supporters because their Great Leader 45 is now the BFF of Vlad. I call the Fake Conservatives because they are only Conservative when the Democrats are in power. When they are in power they spend money like sailors on shore leave. The party that prides itself on saving the life’s of the unborn cares little for our children after they are born. The people who support building a wall to keep The Brown Caravan from invading through our southern border are going to support daycare for those who make it over the wall? When pigs fly they will. The wealthy have so indoctrinated us that taxing them more is so UN American that it will take years just to get us out of that mindset. You can bet your last dollar if The Billionaire class thought there was a way for them to make money on Universal Daycare we would already be interviewing care givers.
2
Naive me: That “ Day Care for All” headline had me anticipating a story about day care for the elderly, as well as young.
6
I have never understood the concept of having children, and having someone else raise them. Why can't the mother or father spend three short years with their children? If readers reply,"Finances," the solution seems simple. Don't have children you can't afford to raise, or spend time with. Especially if you have a mediocre job paying less than twenty dollars an hour. Ridiculous.
7
@Me
The overarching principle of the "progressive" socialists is that you can have your cake and eat it too.
All children would profit from quality daycare. Why do we demonize social societies, what is so bad about being a socialist?
The preamble, written by the FF said it best, it is what every Socialist believes in. At heart the FF were Socialists, they were children of the Age of Enlightenment.
Maybe our children should recite the preamble every morning and it should become the morning prayer in Congress.
1
More free stuff or everyone - the new rallying cry of the Dems.
How about they take advantage of the existing state and federal tax credits - mysteriously unmentioned in this column?
How about they press their 'progressive' state governments where this decision belongs?
We proby know the actual answers to my questions - because the states know what would happen if they levied new taxes to pay for this ostensibly 'free stuff' - we would actually become like France - you know - where they are rioting about taxes.
3
Maybe it's time to bring Lysistrata back to Broadway -- but with a twist. (I think Aristophanes would approve.) Have it take place in modern society and instead of refusing sex, women would refuse to conceive until daycare is provided.
5
This will sound ridiculous but if you can’t afford children, why should you expect to have them? Either you have a village or you don’t.
4
Why not start with something that is actually quite doable and is not really "progressive" or "liberal", but just logical and normative and exists in miost of the western world:
decent treatment for pregnant women in the workplace and federally mandated paid maternity (and in some cases paternity) leave. First have the baby. See Caitlyn Collins today:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/opinion/sunday/the-real-mommy-war-is-against-the-state.html
2
As the working mother of two now grown children, I say amen, amen.
What about those of us who chose not to have children? There are many good reasons not to have children in this age of over-population. Why should I subsidize your family?
5
For the good of society and humanity. Otherwise you’re just cruel.
Here is one possible solution to universal "free" daycare. If you cannot afford daycare, you work at a daycare center and bring your kids with you. That way you are working and your kids have daycare. The cost of you children is deducted from your paycheck.
If you do not earn enough to pay for daycare for your children, then it is not cost effective for you to otherwise work. And if you are able but do not work at all, the care for your children should not be funded by tax money taken by force of law from others.
2
@John
Why not just advocate slavery while you're at it? Taking away a woman's right to choose her path in life is slavery by another name.
day care for all !
and like most things in my life, I shall pay for it myself rather than asking others to pay for it, eh.
3
I suppose if you really wanted to Make America Great, you'd invest in the people. You'd invest in their socialization, their education. You'd invest in their early years, which would give the biggest bang for your buck. How many young people today lack coping skills because they were allowed to just "drift" in their early years?
4
The USA pays more (read invest) than other country in the world for Healthcare and Education. It is not about money. 2/3rds of Americans are overweight because they eat too much and move too little. 50% of people start college never finish. These are individual choices and central planning will not solve them
1
@Steve
If they are drifting--it is their parents fault.
I work hard and pay a lot of taxes for military occupations in the Middle East already. Now you want me to help poor people in my own country? This is crazy. We'd have to stop waging wars to afford all these things.
5
Conservatives do not want women to use contraceptives or have abortion but will not help with child care. This does not make sense. Also, we, as society, should be grateful to women who chose to have children. They are future of nation. They will take care and pay for older generation.
2
I am a non-breeder and I would support that. Even though I don’t benefit directly, it’s for the greater good. Whitney had it right...
3
My son is a single parent and lack of affordable childcare has kept him from fully entering the workforce. He’s on the job and a child gets sick? He winds up coming home. That happens often enough and he loses the job. It’s a tough cycle to be caught up in. It’s a cycle that leads to dependence on public assistance, unemployed capable workers and strain on a family and community. I’ve come to realize that public education should begin at birth. Fund excellent day care with certified workers from the time a child is born. Transition from there into Kindergarten, possibly housing all programs in the public school buildings. Acknowledging that children and families need everyone’s support from birth creates a better society for all of us.
179
@Gail Otteson Maybe your son's mother could help out in emergencies? And if he lives in another city, maybe he should move back to your city when he loses his next job?
15
@Gail Otteson
Would daycare solve the problem of the child who becomes ill during the day? Would ‘t Family members still have to retrieve the sick child ?
20
@Gail Otteson
A) Sounds like poor judgment led to single parenthood.
B) Why doesn't his family help him? If they won't, why do you expect strangers to pony up?
C) Why doesn't he get creative and team up with another single parent and work opposite shifts? One low-income couple I know did that and never spent a dime on child care.
Stop expecting others to pay for your voluntary lifestyle choices. He could've used a condom.
21
My sons are 3 and 5 and we pay $680 every week for full-time daycare for both. It’s like buying a brand new ipad every week. It’s more than in state tuition at my state’s flagship university.
You have at least a decade or so and maybe the help of a 529 plan, but there’s almost nothing to help save or offset the cost of daycare.
The next crisis will be trying to figure out what to do for child care when my older son starts kindergarten next year. School ends at 3 but work ends at 5. Not to mention summers and all the teacher planning days.
1
As a child care worker, I could not afford to put my babies in child care because I would be spending almost as much as I would be making. I did try to find something I felt was safe and good for my children, but the day cares that I found acceptable were way out my reach. Thus, I was out of the workforce for 10 years.
The problem I see as a supporter of universal day care is the one of quality. Unless the state governments put strict controls on what constitutes quality and enforces it with strong licensing regulations, the same mish mash of wildly differing quality offerings will occur. Licensing regulations are not strong enough as is and sub par care arrangements are the result.
146
@tumpajo
Perhaps daycare centers should be added on to existing public schools, with similar licensing requirements as those for a good teacher?
4
@tumpajo
If taxi cabs can be licensed in NYC, then day care can be regulated. Seriously, with the proper inspections day care can be controlled and monitored. If Trip Advisor can be used to grade restaurants, similar forms of social media can grade day care centers. It is very doable.
6
I want my rent and food to be paid, my vacations subsidized, my shopping sprees picked up by the government, etc. i don't want to have to pay for a thing. And I want to stay home and not work anymore. Is this possible under the Democrats plan? If it is, I'm in.
4
This isn’t about vacation. This is about ensuring our children are well taken care of, and of not marginalizing half of our society.
1
The science on the effects of subsidized daycare is pretty well settled. I don’t understand why the Times didn’t discuss it. Perhaps it’s an inconvenient truth.This is a good analysis of the science.https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-daycare
Important parts include “Relying on observational studies has drawn fierce criticism from many in the field, particularly statisticians.” Excellent non observeational data comes from “ nearly two decades ago, when Quebec introduced full-day kindergarten for all five-year-olds and heavily subsidized daycare for four-year-olds, so that parents only had to pay $5 per day out of pocket. The provision of $5-a-day child care was extended to three-year-olds in 1998, two-year-olds in 1999, and all babies up to age two in 2000. "Universal Childcare, Maternal Labor Supply, and Family Well-Being," went on to win the 2009 Doug Purvis Memorial Prize for the most significant written contribution to Canadian economic policy. The article concludes as follows:
We report striking evidence that children's outcomes have worsened since the program was introduced. We also find suggestive evidence that families we study became more stressed with the introduction of the program. This is manifested in increased aggressiveness and anxiety for the children; more hostile, less consistent parenting for the adults; and worse adult mental health and relationship satisfaction.
2
Continuing”More recent studies confirm the profound negative effects of the Quebec child-care program. For example, a March 2014 study published by the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network explored how age factored into the negative effects observed from Quebec's daycare program. These researchers (like others) uncovered widespread negative consequences, but they emphasized that earlier exposure to the child-care system resulted in larger problems. They wrote:
The estimates indicate that on average, children who gain access to subsidized child care at earlier ages experience significantly larger negative impacts on motor-social developmental scores, self-reported health status and behavioral outcomes including physical aggression and emotional anxiety.”
2
Finally! Thanks for the much-needed substantiation.
Most people don’t get out of work at 2:30. So once your child enters kindergarten you are not free from child care costs. I pay $190 a month for after school care and that’s only for two days a week.
2
I was a daycare inspector for several years in the most affluent part of the state and did not encounter a single daycare (center or home) that I'd have put my own child in. (Part day, part week preschools, yes.) Calling for "high quality daycare" is easier said than done. My definition of "high quality daycare": late entry (not at just a few weeks old); limited hours (not dawn until dusk 5 days a week); consistency of caregiver year to year; low ratios; requirements for more time outdoors and not just in completely artificial settings.
High quality day care is high cost.
The daycare debate rarely confronts honestly what is best for children. Statistics are cherry-picked: children from disadvantaged and impoverished backgrounds in daycare later score higher on standardized tests; it doesn't mean daycare is fabulous and does no harm.
When I did have a child of my own, we made what many people would consider significant sacrifices to live on one income. We have one child, one joyful and well adjusted child who does great in school and community and is so happy to be home with mom at the end of his school day. I work part time.
Too often what is couched as empowering women is really about powering the economy. Everybody into the workforce NOW, even if you just gave birth 8 weeks ago. Whatever happened to choice, including the legitimate choice of caring for your children yourself? How about a subsidy for that, if we're going to talk about subsidies?
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@Country Girl
True! I would go further. Too often empowering women really means taking money and power from women who were careful in their choice to have sex to those who were not.
9
@Country Girl in countries with universal daycare, a subsidy for at-home care by parents is common.
20
@Country Girl
Amen. Not to mention the extremely expensive problems, such as runaway anxiety at older ages, that mal-attached children suffer from.
All day separation makes secure attachment an uphill battle. Some very confident babies and gifted parents attach but others do not.
4
I am so very, very tired of the comments saying "but you chose to have kids!" As an individual, I did. As a collective group, children are not a choice. The children do not choose to be born.
Our problem in the US today is that we are too concerned with making absolutely sure that no one is rewarded or subsidized for their personal choices. Every benefit is scrutinized for moral hazard. We are so obsessed with making sure that parents aren't rewarded for their own sloppiness that we completely discount what's good for children.
The reality is this: Children are going to be in childcare. Refusing to subsidize it reduces the amount only slightly. What actually happens is that children wind up in subpar care. Women cannot afford to give up working for years, because they may not be able to reenter the workforce. We should subsidize childcare in part because it ensures that children will be in higher quality care.
And yes: we should also do it for women. The responsibility argument says that we, as a society, want women (and it's women, 99% of the time, who are penalized) permanently held back because they have children--because they cannot afford childcare or sometimes access it at all. We also want daycare workers, also usually women, to be forced to accept low wages.
Some of you did not choose to have children and resent paying for others. But you were born, and other people paid for you.
310
My wife left the workforce when our first child was born. She reentered it when he entered first grade, mornings, part time only. When he entered high school, she was able to expand her scope of work. Once he was nidifugous, she was fully back in the workforce full time plus (teacher, NOT an eight hour job!). Within ten years she was making more than I did after working thirty years in a NYS civil service job.
8
@Alexis
Ya know what, Alexis? When I was born, there was no WIC, SNAP, TANF, Head Start, child tax credit, EITC, dependent care credit, Section 8, USDA school nutrition program and myriad other bounty that parents today get. None of it.
My parents might -- might -- have gotten a tax deduction for their two dependents, I don't know. They worked for five years -- both of them -- at low-income jobs, lived on one wage in an 800 sq ft house with one car -- and saved. What a concept, eh? So that when I was born, my mom could stay home till I was in school, and then go back to work. They didn't expect everyone else to fund their wants.
Also, I have been in the workforce for 40 years. I've paid taxes at a higher rate than the childed to fund programs I create zero liability for, from SS for minors and survivors to the EITC and other tax 'credits' to welfare programs. The LEAST today's kids can do is provide some cash flow when it's time for me to collect social security. Don't preen yourself that you are doing some big societal favor by producing offspring. They are more a liability than a benefit until proven otherwise.
37
@Alexis No my parents paid for me! I am so tired of people adamantly making demands that other people pay for them. Get some pride and pay your own way. Most of the progressive agenda is often about prideless people seeking to dump their costs on others. I don't have kids but have been paying school taxes without complaint my whole adult life. Those who look to government for money are those who weaken this country and who should seek the pride that comes from paying your own way. We need more people who understand the joy and pride from knowing that we have never sought anything from government
24
I think we would be remiss if we did not take seriously the positive health aspects of periodic vacations. Americans--all,not just those with families, should receive an annual stipend for vacations. Of course it should be limited, perhaps just enough for a one week Caribbean vacation for a family of 5. To add to the positive health benefits, the stipulation should also include business class for flying.
No, no, no! The GND says you're not allowed to fly, unless you're flitting around the country to raise campaign contributions, going on congressional junkets, attending conferences on climate change (or Davos). The rest of schlubs will have to wait until they build the great carbon-neutral underground electric railway to the Carribian and elsewhere, or take a sail boat. But not to worry, it will all be done within ten years. Minor inconvenience for saving the planet.
2
Here's a thought. Planning how you're going to take care of your family before you have children. Understand that you won't be going out to dinner three times a week because children cost money. Understand that you are going to live on a shoe string budget for a long time when you have kids. Plan your family. My wife and I decided to stop at two children because that was what we could afford. We bought a small house and have lived a wonderful life with a one bathroom house and a lot of used cars. We never wanted and we paid cash for my kids collage. Live within your means and you will work through the finances. The government cannot solve every issue. If someone needs this I'm fine. But if it's so you can afford the 4 bedroom 3 bath house forget it.
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@Tony Zbrzezny. A lot of good advice here, but there are too many people who have to choose between childcare and working. That is a bad spot to be in and also hurts our larger society. You are lucky to have a wife but many families are single parents and the other parent is out of the picture.
19
@Tony Zbrzezny yes, I've traveled a similar course...also, my parents were not well off, and they raised three kids with my Mom at home...
8
@Tony Zbrzezny
Here's a thought: If you think average people go out to eat 3 times a week, you are out of touch with reality.
44
Absolutely agree. Day Care for All is very necessary and should be a major progressive platform. It will be a great contribution to the working class families. It would also be a huge boost to the economy.
The US is ready to go fight in Venezuela, keeps fighting in the Middle East, keeps more than 700 military bases in foreign countries,....
Money for peace, not for war!
4
Thanks, NYT and Kathy Pollitt for highlighting an enormous need. If you're working poor, it's almost pointless to work if you have very young children -- the cost of child care will decimate your income. Yet if you have a job, you want to keep it, so you look outside the regulated child care industry that wealthier parents can afford and hope the person you're entrusting your baby to -- your neighbor, an acquaintance, someone you found on Craigstlist -- is in fact safe. It's a horribly inequitable system that strains families finances and means some kids are left in risky situations because their parents just don't have other options. A nearby, healthy grandparent is the ideal solution, of course, but families are spread apart, and relatives can't always step in to help. Making Early Head Start -- 0-2 -- widely available could make a big difference in many communities for parents who are working, but struggling, and need a safe place for their children to go. Of course, paid maternity leave in the early months of a newborn's life would also make a difference. I hope as more mothers seize power in the political arena, more action is taken to address the ways in which we fail young children in this country because of a lack of accessible, affordable child care.
1
I work at a public university where they offer free daycare to all children of students, but not employees. Opportunities for free care abound, one needs to know where to look.
I am a retiree who lives on a fixed income. Our town in New Jersey recently voted for free day care which resulted in a dramatic increases in property tax. The young professionals who recently moved to our town and who make in the 150k to 200k range managed to push the bill through. Now we have a continuing flight of seniors away from their homes and families to the South. If you, as a senior object you are labeled as someone who is against the children. This is why liberal Democrats who have taken over the Party will continue to drive older voters away into the hands of the pro capitalist Republicans.
94
@Babel Your situation seems to have nothing to do with a liberal agenda, but with the organizational and voting power of the young professionals who got relief for something they may not have needed relief for. The people who need inexpensive child care are those who make less and who are forced to choose which parent will drop out of the workforce, or worse, the single mother who can't be home because she works two jobs. The spiral is only downward, costing us all more. There is nothing to say a government-sponsored child care program couldn't be means tested like free and reduced lunch programs at public schools. Federal funding would reduce the impact on localities.
23
@Babel
This is called representative government.
One doesn't always get everything one wants.
And sometimes the cost of civilization is more than you planned for.
The United States is a Randian backwater.
Nation-building at home is what's needed.
You can always move to a rural, religious, regressive, Republican wonderland to save a few dollars.
65
@Babel
The problem here is not with free daycare, but with the reliance on local property taxes with no accomodations for fixed-income home-owners to pay for it. Like Medicare and Social Security, free univeral pre-K should be federally funded precisely to avoid the perverse effects you describe.
71
Subsidized child care for all is the most important change we could make in our society. The cost of child care is so high, it makes me wonder how women earning minimum wage could possibly afford it. It worries me to imagine what solutions they have to find in order to work to support their families. I hope the people who fear "socialism" will wake up and realize a modern society provides for everyone, not just the rich.
3
As a clinical child psychologist, I put free early childhood education before free college. The first 3 years of life are the foundation for later learning, and children who are deprived of stimulation during those years do not reach their full potential. We all lose. And with our small population (in relation to China and India), we cannot afford to, let alone it truly is immoral.
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@Connecticut Grandmother
I put free healthcare for all before free early childhood ed.
8
@Connecticut Grandmother The early years are also important for developing social and emotional security. Maybe if infants and toddlers were in the care of someone who loves them instead of in daycare full-time, they'd grow up with a greater sense of self worth and the fulfillment of social bonds instead of maturing into mindless consumers trying to fill the emotional void left by their parents' inattention.
I am not opposed to women working and using daycare services, but universal child care support shouldn't just be a way for society to generate jobs in daycares. Recognizing that, in many situations, it might be best for mom to stay at home and raise her own children and that IS WORK, stay-at-home moms should be eligible for childcare support too. I am not opposed to women working, and we should encourage more flexible arrangements that allow partners to share the duties of child rearing. Mothers desiring to return to work should have the ability to re-enter the workforce part-time or job-share with a colleague. Here, maybe the gig economy isn't a bad thing, in that it could give working mothers more freedom to be at home when they want or need to be... oh wait, all of these arrangements would entail the loss of benefits, and therein lies an argument for universal healthcare.
10
@Connecticut Grandmother Yes! QUALITY daycare is great for kids, and not just the economically disadvantaged ones. The value of social, visual, intellectual, physical stimulation from a motivated, caring staff and a community of other kids (mixed age seems to be ideal) cannot be underestimated. But it is expensive. We must be willing not merely to provide not only the tuition for parents, but also the tuition (i.e., the education and respectful salaries) for the care givers. It's win-win-win-win - for the kids, for the staff (new job opportunities), for the parents (who can participate in their jobs and family life more easily), and for our country's economy (more jobs, more productive current employees, increased potential from next generation of workers). But quality is key.
8
As a divorced woman with a generous spousal support component, it makes more fiscal sense for me to be home with my kids than to try to work and pay for childcare. I live in NYC and my field (arts administration) is notoriously low-paying. But ultimately, this puts me behind the eight ball, because the longer I am out of the work force, the harder it will be for me to enter in a strong position.
When I lived in Europe for six years, my neighbors openly praised their high-functioning government with its punctual and efficient rail system, clean lakes and rivers, green initiatives, support for families, etc. They also seemed to implicitly understand that this meant a high level of taxation. NO ONE, even the wealthiest I knew, complained about paying taxes. As long as affluent Americans see taxation as the great enemy, our government's infrastructure will remain stuck in the mid-twentieth century.
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@Lee
I was ok with your thesis until you stated “NO ONE... complained about paying taxes.”
5
@G 1/3 to 1/2 of their income. I’d venture to say, G, that you’re not paying even close to that. Yet another boot licker whining about the tax burden of people far wealthier than him. Speaking of which, do you have enough money saved that you can get medical insurance and living expenses covered when you’re a senior without using any government subsidized programs? So many people on here complaining about subsidizing child care have Medicare and Medicaid as part of their retirement plans. Tsk tsk.
7
@G
Why aren't we getting our money's worth? The government wastes money on military nonsense. We are happy to spend billions on a plane, but think any amount for universal p-k is too much. I have said for years, I would be happy to pay more taxes if I got governmental healthcare. It would likely be cheaper as well- I deal with health insurances for my job and those places have more adminstration than almost any other field.
13
Universal preschool is not only important for the relief it will provide women and families, it can drive a political wedge between white working-class women and the Christian Right. The Christian Right stands on a fake family values moral high ground of opposition to abortion and support for the traditional patriarchal family. Even women who support those values face the practical necessities of working and supporting a family. Progressives and the women’s movement can earn the trust of the multicultural working-class through linking the fight for economic justice for families and equality for women.
4
part of the reason modern Americans sometimes have two parents working is because both have fulfilling jobs and career dreams.
But, more often its because of our consumer society. We all want that new HD big flat screen TV, the cool couch, the bigger faster cars, credit cards with bigger credit lines, bigger houses, a boat for the weekend maybe, and the latest smartphone. In general.
We are bombarded with media messages of "if only had this new thing, THEN you would be happy".
Ignore the messages
Leave within our means. Be frugal. Don't try to keep up with the Joneses we see on television.
Minimalist lifestyle will let us stay home with the kids and not worry about food on their plates at the same time.
Seriously.
2
Another service that can be provided by your government. I am an American married to a Swedish woman. When we decided to have children she was shocked at the lack of possibilities in the states. We moved to Sweden for many reasons, but high among them was the help provided to families with young children. Besides guaranteed free quality daycare, there is paid maternity leave of 18 months for mother or father, and of course free healthcare for kids (includes dental.) It is possible for Americans as well. Just look around you. Canada, Scandinavia and most of the rest of Western Europe have all succeeded with such social care plans for their citizens. Will it raise your taxes some? Of course, but it won't be the Draconian Venezuelan horror scenarios threatened by the Foxes and their ilk.
The disposable income and GDP of the afore mentioned nations are on a par or better than the U.S. One other point; having quality childcare improves the quality of life and family a good deal. Take it from those of us who live with "socialism." Try it, you'll like it.
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@Kevo Thank you for mentioning the 18 months of paid family leave. That is as important as quality day care, another option for parents that the U.S. does not provide.
32
@Kevo
Americans prefer freedom over socialism. Some Americans, I mean. The "socialist" Democrats? Not so much. Wait till their newly enamored base realizes that the "rich" alone cannot fund their "new deal" schemes, that their own, middle-class taxes will balloon ever higher to pay for them. I notice that you omitted your own tax rates. Please reply and include those rates, so we Americans may be better educated before we debate your socialist paradise.
11
@DHL, Sweden has taken in enough immigrants over the years that it is not monocultural and there is a significant Moslem population. This was true when I was visiting Stockholm regularly in the late 1980s and the 1990s and is more so today. My Swedish language textbook (1987) was written from the point of view of a Yugoslavian immigrant teen aged girl.
The vast preponderance of Swedes are city dwellers. There are also vast areas of Sweden where virtually no one lives. Hence on average the country presents as sparsely populated.
16
I live in Copenhagen with my wife and 2 children age 1 and 4. They are both taken care of at a day care facility 6-7 hours a day while my wife and I work. Food and diapers are taken care of and they get to socialize with other children at their same age and different ages. We pay a fee and the state(Municipalitiy) subsidies the aprox. 50 % of the cost which is currently set at 303 USD per child per month.
My advice to the American people is to vote on a “socialist” to get women out of the 1950’s view of how a mother should act.
518
@Jesper Persson - 6-7 hours a day of subsidized high quality care sounds lovely, but is not enough time to allow both parents to work unless they are part-time employees. Do you add private care?
11
@REno
Your math is only correct if the parents work the same schedule. One can begin work earlier, one later. The children can be dropped off by the parent who goes to work later and be picked up by the other. And ostensibly one of the benefits of living in a country where childcare is valued is that parents can have more flexible schedules and do some work from home.
37
@RE Parents tend to split drop-off and pick up duties. We certainly do in our family. My husband drops the kids off around 8 am, and I’m there to pick them up at 4 pm. And since you’re rarely expected to work more than your allotted hours, you don’t have to scramble to pick up your kids.
There’s also afterschool care for primary schoolers. It costs money, of course, but it’s cheaper than daycare and preschool.
From the 48 weeks of maternity leave I received to the affordable childcare options, it’s great being a parent in Denmark. Sure, we pay high taxes... but we get so much back in return. I’m a New Yorker by birth, and there’s no way I’d come back to raise a family. Too expensive.
78
This is a wealthy country. Everything should be free.
4
This was supposed to be Ivanka's signature issue, wasn't it? But she never moved beyond writing off your private nanny...
2
The obvious lack of professionalism in child care in the US is a shock to every European . A business held in a regular house by uneducated people with no sense of psychology and very low to almost dangerous material conditions . And the price is ridiculously high .Americans have no idea of how far they are retarded in terms of healthcare and education compared to Europe .And first of all in regards to equality .The rich have access to some services, even if they are of bad quality but the lower classes cannot afford anything.
4
“...the decision to quit working has more implications than loss of a paycheck...Think lost Social Security, fewer promotions,...and social isolation...Lack of child care also promotes the... tendency of parenthood to turn previously egalitarian couples into gender stereotypes. He becomes the chief breadwinner, she’s responsible for children and home...even if she goes back to work...
Don’t know where to begin...
Actually on your side, re gender-equality at work, to where I think benefits provided to pregnant women – and spouses, if present – should progress beyond grudging crumbs from the table, to support that incents starting and maintaining families...
BTW, that includes cluing in co-workers – of both genders – not to target a pregnant women’s career viability for their own advantage...
.....
You conflate gender-equality with socialist economic – and yes, sexist – nonsense...Here goes:
> To start – would this mean same-sex couples would have less access to this utopian day-care, because they’re cis egalitarian
> Are you increasing the social contact for the child – or for the mother...If the mother, why does that have to be through work
> Here’s the socialist nonsense – free day-care to support work so Soc Sec taxes can be paid...The cruel irony is that the marginal Soc Sec benefits for a working vs non-working spouse can be vanishingly small
If your real focus is single mothers – then say so...
Their baby – and they – need just as much love...
Maybe more...
Had my son after obtaining a doctorate from Columbia University. My husband is a physician. But we still couldn’t find adequate child care for our autistic son. Twelve years later, I still can’t enter the workforce. While my son has flourished, my skills are no longer relevant. Someone please fix this mess!
5
The polarization of media and elimination of any semblance of balance is in full force this election cycle. Much has been written about Trump effect on the basics of our political system. Unfortunately, I see parallel in the 4th estate. There is now virtually no pretense of independence as the Nytimes, CNN and other news sources prominently promote a hard left populist agenda. Fox and Breitbart led the charge with mainstream media, despite the well documented biases of editors and most reporters attempted in the last cycle to remain neutral. We have moved into a new era and one where Congress, the WH, and the News Media are all biased an politicized. The last bastion may be the courts and despite the biases of appointment, the intent of the participants is purer than any other part of society. We have become Italy. Sad
1
I don't think women, or anyone else, will be working if the tax rate is 100% on all incomes. That's what it would take to pay for free medical services, free college, free child care, etc, etc.
6
This is a double problem. If we believe children should be nursed for at least six months to promote optimal health, then it makes sense to mandate that as the minimum leave time for the mother (certainly more than two or three weeks).
After that it makes sense for the government rather than myriad private for profit agencies to provide child development care for all children (an at-home parent is not necessarily a good parent!).
I really think it's time to eliminate terms such as lower, middle, even upper class from the discussion and the assumption of merit and possibility of change.
In a nation with skewed taxation -- only the little people pay taxes still holds -- no one really cares -- so stupid things like a 2.50$ charge on cab rides below 96th S. -- afraid to put in a pied-a-terre tax-- eh Bill?). Ditto fear of automation -- -- both radiologist and subway engineers should probably be replaced by AI/robots -- lower costs and better results for society at large!! Ditto online university courses taught by top notch professors -- if we REALLLY want to bring down the cost of college!! Grad students can do the grading as they do now.
1
@Make America Sane, actually the bottom 50% of wager earners pay near zero, and nearly all of income tax receipts by government are from the wealthy. You either had a typo, or a misunderstanding of the data.
1
Here is a truly radical idea: Don't have kids you can't afford to support.
As I said, radical.
9
And yet another radical idea - let’s be certain that all women have access to, first, birth control and, second, to abortion- if all else fails. Then they would have the option to NOT have children they couldn’t afford.
2
@J. Do you think most people are fully aware of how much children will cost before they have them, and do you think even the best-laid plans don't fall apart, that illness, divorce, job layoffs, death, etc., aren't realities that can blow apart a parent's plan for caring for their child? I know someone who feels just as you do -- that no one should ever have a child that they aren't prepared to pay full cost for. Of course, that person ended up having a child with a severe disability -- and, big shock, is now quite happy to use considerable government assistance to help with the costs of raising that child. No one knows completely what they'll be facing when they become a parent. So especially if we're going to limit women's access to birth control and abortion -- as the current administration seems hellbent on doing -- then we ought to be damn sure we actually care about the children we're forcing women to bear. Society as a whole benefits from children getting healthy, safe starts in life -- and society suffers when that doesn't happen.
1
Personally, I would put care for an autistic child under the same category as any other health problem - as in, it’s a healthcare issue and not a childcare issue. I support healthcare for all, but I am on the fence about childcare for all.
The idea of free everything for everyone, even or especially non-citizens, is a socialist mirage (or a demonstration of blinding stupidity).
The money needed for universal daycare and all the other socialist gimmes is not the government's money, it is money taken from hard-working citizens in the form of taxes. And, by the way, confiscating the wealth of a relatively small number of US billionaires may provide a one-time windfall, but watch what happens when billionaires and multi-millionaires move offshore.
As Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money."
5
@Ro Ma
The radical anti-socialist Thatcher:
“I believed that the NHS was a service of which we could genuinely be proud. It delivered a high quality of care — especially when it came to acute illnesses — and at a reasonably modest unit cost, at least compared with some insurance-based systems.”
How about just having at least one parent stay- at-home and raise their own kid? Like the “good ol days”. Clearly that would be the best situation for the optimal “family health”. Day care for all is a band aid on a gaping wound.
5
Since when has it become the obligation of other people to pay for the consequences of your choices and actions? If you can't pay for a kid's upbringing and its associated costs, then don't have children. Do not force me to finance the results of your irresponsibility.
6
We all benefit. The workers you depend on (just look around you) need quality daycare.
I understand your point. I don’t necessarily like the idea of subsidizing other people’s children and want people to be responsible for their choices. That being said, I much prefer to pay for early childhood costs that provide early intervention and supports when needed and improve graduation rates rather than more money for extra special services or incarceration costs for children who didn’t get the help they needed when they were very young.
"We are not Denmark."
Yep. And "we are not consistently ranked among the happiest countries in the world".
There's no mystery – spread the wealth!
5
By all means, besides providing incomes for those “who choose not to work,” let’s provide daycare for “parents who choose not to parent.” Is there any aspect of personal responsibility that progressives do not find abhorrent, and would thus like to have the government provide?
4
That's the best idea in a long time. Even I, a crotchety old white guy, can see the tremendous sexist burden put upon women who have historically held the responsibility for child rearing. Subsidized child care should start with those who need it most, low-income single mothers and continue to be improved and expanded over time; also the best approach to health care. The time is now.
7
This is so completely accurate.
1
The idea of free everything for everyone, even or especially non-citizens, is a socialist mirage (or a demonstration of blinding stupidity).
The money needed for universal daycare and all the other socialist gimmes is not the government's money, it is money taken from hard-working citizens in the form of taxes. And, by the way, confiscating the wealth of a relatively small number of US billionaires may provide a one-time windfall, but watch what happens when billionaires and multi-millionaires move offshore.
As Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." To put it another way, socialism is your hand in my pocket.
2
The columnist makes a horrible argument for something that needs to be seriously considered. It is not moral to provide vastly unequal education opportunities based on the wealth of your parents. To that extent, I think that providing children--including the very youngest--with equal treatment is a moral imperative--they have not had the opportunity to work hard and make the life choices that we have had.
I do NOT owe parents "fun." What breathtaking arrogance and entitlement. I (we) owe children an equal shot at success *despite* their parents obvious lack of hard work and grit.
4
I got really excited until they were talking about CHILDREN again.
Give me day care for my Parkinson’s wife!
4
The progressive list should include Porsche Panameras for men over 60. Studies show it would make them feel younger at a time of flagging self image.
4
So it seems that universal government supplied child care is now an antidote to sexism! What isn't sexist these days?
Of course taxing all men to pay for a service that permits women to have children without the annoyance of having to deal with a male partner is also a wonderful benefit.
It allows more women to be single parents which frees them from the tyranny of patriarchal structures at home. It makes men more disposable than ever.... and that's a great thing as we head towards a feminist utopia of men supplying sperm, and then let the government provide financial support.
Is this best for children? Well, boys from fatherless homes disproportionately exhibit antisocial and criminal behavior. Girls sexually mature faster and have higher incidents of teen pregnancy (which renews the cycle of awesome single parenting).
Oh, how great it would be if women just didn't need men in lives!
3
Two parent families also need day care.
1
Such legislation should be introduced named to honor the original sponsors of the 1971 Child Care Bill - Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug.
3
The creche system in France works well, and there are many other models to look at in other, more progressive and women-friendly countries. But Americans are a selfish and competitive lot. Look at New York working women. They don't want to help children other than their own. How many UWS women allow their nannies to bring their children with them to work?
1
My generation was turned lose from college in an era of 10.8% unemployment, 18% mortgage rates and 10% student loan rates. We raised families, bought homes and paid off our student loans. The American economy flourished. Now we've got a bunch of forward thinkers proposing that no one should have to work to get paid, the government will provide you with a living wage, school and medical care are part of the package too. Have as many kids as you want because the more, the merrier! The only problem is the golden goose isn't looking too good and they money trees in their basements are losing leaves fast.
5
This is the richest nation the world has ever known. We can do this v
1
I was fortunate that my son was born the same year that Quebec introduced European style high quality subsidized daycare. From the age of 14 months, he had a place at an excellent daycare with specialists trained in early childhood education, a block away from our home. Diapers, meals, special outings were included in the 5$ a day that I paid. I was a single mother, and cannot imagine having survived the responsibilities of a one parent household without this. The emotional challenges were difficult enough, without the economic challenges I surely would have faced. Almost 20 years later, Quebec economists estimate that with the massive reduction of singles mothers on welfare, increased taxes from double income families, and the increase in women's education and salary, this daycare program not only pays for itself, but may even be revenue generating.
7
@Juliet Waters
"this daycare program not only pays for itself..."
What do you mean, "pays for itself"? Is it tax-subsidized or not? If not, then it must be a private initiative. It can't be both. Which is it?
@Ed L. It pays for itself with the extra taxes raised from more people working at higher wages, and fewer people supported by social programs.
Liberal socialists like this author continue to wonder why President Trump won the election, and they never get it. Colorado and California both voted down statewide medicare for all program, and France rolled back excessive taxes (70% marginal tax rates when Hollande was PM) and now excessive environmental taxes. But yet American liberals keep coming back and doubling down, thinking that more free stuff will win elections. No, The majority of America does not want a government takeover of their lives, and will vote against it when the left gets out of hand. Child care is a large challenge for families, but in most areas there are multiple options, and people choose the care level they can afford and justify. If government day care is cheap and affordable, it will likely be low quality. No Soviet-style care please
6
@Pls
"government takeover of their lives" sounds frightening
As Sec Clinton put it, "it takes a village" to raise a child. Some will argue that this is communal thinking. What's good for the commune is what's good for the child. The commune is responsible for all. Some will argue that choices and actions have consequences. Only you are responsible for you. Will government funded child care be freedom of religion or freedom from religion.
1
Do not ask this lifelong Dem and liberal to pay for your sex. It is not my responsibility for your decision to have a child, or for both parents to work. And to ask struggling Americans, especially those without children, is the height of audacity.
My ex and I lived in close to poverty so that our children had the best caregiver of all, a parent.
To equate this with universal health care or a higher minimum wage is apples to oranges. Any candidate who embraces this is dead in the water.
Reliable birth control has been around for a century. Use it. Please.
13
@Jus' Me, NYT
Great comment and right to the point, but there goes your membership in the "lifelong Dem and liberal" club. Your heresy will not go unpunished!
2
So only the upper class should have children. Then who would do all the work? Look around you. We all benefit from free day care.
1
Capitalism made working an obligation for most women. Guys who promote capitalism should at least have the decency to help these women and their families get a descent living.
3
Everyone should work for a living. Those whose labor isn’t valuable enough to an employer to allow them to support a family (like myself) cannot expect to have one. While I agree that the taxpayer shouldn’t have to underwrite the cost of supporting children for low wage Walmart employees, neither should Walmart. Your life decisions must reflect the reality of your financial situation. Low incomes mean bare survival. That’s reality. And while an employee may detest their job and curse their bosses, the fact is that those jobs need to be done by someone.
1
@Roland Berger
"Capitalism made working an obligation for most women"
Wrong. Capitalism made working a right and an opportunity for women to improve their lives and gain independence from men. Look at the lives of women around the world where working outside the home or hut is absolutely forbidden by custom or religion. Theirs is a life of endless domestic chores, drudgery, boredom, and childbearing. In capitalist countries women own their own lives. Their destiny is in their own hands and brains.
1
They need to done and so the workers need to be paid a living wage
I would also urge adding a soothing foot and neck message for all American citizens over the age of 16 ... uh, everyone in America documented and undocumented ... two times a week. Helps foster a climate of togetherness and serenity sorely lacking these days. Anyone under 16, gets an hour extra of drawing and clay class.
5
@JW - How about the use of a chauffeured Rolls once a week, with free opera tickets?
2
It’s easier to mock ideas than it is to come up with solutions of your own.
Not as easy as coming up with great sounding ideas and never have to worry about how to pay for them.
The left should stop listing all of the stuff they are promising to give people and keep their messages simple:
1. Everything for Everyone, no questions asked.
2. If it feels good, do it—someone else will pay for the consequences.
But they should consider Venezuela and the recent failure of those pay what you want Panera stores. Responsible, hardworking liberals will not like what happens when government’s primary focus becomes giving people stuff they don’t have to pay for subsidizing irresponsibility.
7
You are absolutely right. If we neglect the need for adequate, and hopefully loving, environment for our children to grow up as healthy individuals, we are doomed. Our priorities, supporting brute force instead (more weapons, more display of imperial force), ought to run counter to all reason and feelings of solidarity, and the awful chance of sinking tomorrow's societal cohesion. Child care since birth must be our national priority, and proof that women are finally recognized as equals...and stop their frustration from being left behind by an unjust system...that allows victimhood in our odious inequality of resources, and opportunities, and the inability to enjoy life more fully. This is one more reason we need more people, especially women, involved in politics, so to change archaic, and unjust, laws that weaken our grasp of humanity. But hoping a suitable response from cowards and hypocrites 'a la Trump' and 'a la McConnell' is foolish indeed.
3
Look for the film/website “No Small Matter” to really understand the impact of child care on society... it is no small matter.
1
How about paying men enough so that moms have the option to stay home?
6
paid parental leave, free baby care, free child care, free kindergarten, free after school care, free college, free health care, free elder care....well, it'll be interesting to see how that all works out...
4
@A P
You might be interested in reading WIKI on US foster care. No stellar rating there and why? Because we avoid the obvious answer, orphanages where the parents can see and redeem their children when the stress lifts. And guess what would be the perfect place for adjacent child care facilities since strangely enough the proposed child care facilities the public clamored for decades ago were dropped with the exception of hospitals and universities. Dare I mention socialism comes with state child care?
If you want to consider that state babysitting, please do so. Hidden in all the silence is the fact that every state has a state run orphanage, bet you didn't know that.
The foster care/family court system functions to provide jobs that vanished with the permanent civil service positions.
Fatherhood isn't and should be a punishment.
Perhaps you should take a good look at Quebec's affordable daycare system which has enabled many women to stay in the workforce.
4
I was not sure, at first, whether the title of this article was meant to be satire, but the author is serious.
As the most effective micro-economic unit ever conceived, capable of training tomorrow’s citizens and teaching mutual support and empathy as well as childcare and elder care, why don’t we put most of our support behind the nuclear family?
That bizarre, now seen as patriarchal, anachronism that sustained life for thousands of years seems to be in for a rough go under Progressivism.
Here is why I won’t give you a wooden nickel for the idea:
First, it makes the assumption that all people should work as laborers by skewing a benefit so harshly against non-family citizens.
Second, it degrades childcare by separating parents from the rewards and responsibilities of raising their children.
Third, it erodes families, making it possible for someone to have children as a single parent and turn them over to the state for care.
If you don’t believe that Moderate and Conservative Americans see “RED” in the Progressive platform, read articles like this carefully. The Left is obsessed with equal outcomes, preaching the new dogma of “fair” that will find no end to the projects for more state spending to correct. Of course, this all comes with the delicious and appealing promise of redistributive taxation, the beating heart of the Liberal platform.
If I thought the Leftist Progressive was a better person, I would jump on board.
I see only ENVY. Leftist Democrats ARE green.
6
I have an idea, Very progressive. Why not raise your own kids instead of shipping them off to an institution or a nanny? You might not be able to afford a TV or 3 Iphones, or go on vacation or whatever.... but at least your kid will be loved and secure. That wil pay enormous societal dividends over time
8
My wife and I decided to live within the means of my one very middle class paycheck until our kids were old enough to be alone after school for a couple of hours. We did without the big house, nice cars and fancy vacations until she returned to her teaching career and we had saved enough to put our two through college. Folks today want, no, NEED everything right now! Sorry, but I agree with those that say your choice to be a parent is YOUR choice and if you haven't planned properly I shouldn't be asked to bail you out.
4
Why would we need daycare when the children could be raised in nurseries that are attached to the collectives and co-ops?
4
It’s also missing a way to pay for anything, besides other people’s money.
7
@Mike Guess what? OPP (other people's money) ends up paying for food stamps, health care, housing subsidies, welfare, disabilities, prisons, "the soft bigotry of low expectations," depression, drug use, and just the general sadness of kids growing up with no joy being raised by joyless parents.
I have not figured out what utopia is yet. Still searching. But what we have going on here with every man/woman/family being expected to figure it out and do it alone, is not working out for any of us. Spiritually or the collective/individual wallet. We can always find money for wars and a reason to call it "defense of country". When will we figure out that money spent on quality of life and the comment good is the best defense money can buy?
1
Jim from TN wrote "the best childhood care are two loving and committed heterosexual parents ...".
As a parent by birth and by adoption, and as a 10 year board member of the DE adoption support group, I know better, as does every adoptive parent in our group. The small number of gay couples in our group are providing some of the best, most stable, loving homes for their kids. Several of those kids have profound special needs and were considered "unadoptable", but now thrive in loving homes. Children need love, and emotional and material support. Small kids do not even notice gay or straight, black or white, until they encounter bigotry. Kids understand love.
3
And what about low income earners affording to take a sick day or two or even a week? Or having long term disability ?
1
Thank you for keeping this important national topic .. 'front page' as the political process begins to have someone else occupy our People's White House. The U.S. is about 4-decades behind other 'developed' nations on this family-centric matter of taking care of all our preschoolers.
2
As with many “progressive” ideas an essential element is missing: who’s going to pay for this? Taxpayers, that’s who! I spent a lifetime paying (with no government assistance whatsoever) for my own choices and now you want me to pay for your choices as well: health care, child care, education, on and on. I loathe the “progressive” agenda because it’s based on a few of us paying for everyone. I’m all paid up!
6
Before any one complains about the "heartlessness" of sending children to day care: rich women, towards human history, have always outsourced child caring to slaves/workers. Roman aristocrats didn't even feed their babies with their own milk (they outsourced it to a slave).
The " indispensability of the mother figure" is a myth created to keep the working classes from thinking about socialism (which requires automation/collectivization of all housekeeping services), akin to the myth of the necessity to cook at home.
2
Let's have a true safety net for all. Every person should be able to live in decent housing; raise children without going into poverty; retire at 65 (no 70 is not the new 50); have the medical/mental/dental/eye care they need. Good grief the data is in...a healthy, secure population is what will keep America great. Tax gifts to the rich will destroy the remaining middle class and we'll soon be a banana republic. Ooops we already are...
6
I believe Elizabeth Warren discussed this in her candidacy speech.
Yes! Thank you, Katha, for speaking up and reminding all of us!
1
Thanks for a great column, Katha Pollitt!
2
I, for one, do not want to subsidize people with inverted priorities. Why not establish financial security, enough to provide for child care, before having the child? Whatever happened to self-reliance and family planning?
Do that and, if you're still falling short, I'll consider helping you. But you must be responsible and do your part first.
4
I’d be supportive of this if:
1. It was actually high quality day care (you get what you pay for).
2. Democrats encouraged “family” values. Most poor kids are born to single mothers, and the burden of childcare is 10x more challenging without two married parents.
1
Yeah, I know: "It takes a village." But here's a sobering thought. Will the village, since it's apparently on the hook to pay for everyone else's kids, have a say in who has kids? There is no shortage of people on our already-overburdened planet. Why are we talking about providing public subsidies so there will be even more mouths to feed, clothe, and shelter (and in turn, necessitate the incremental carbon emissions required to do so)?
5
I agree this needs to be a top priority - more urgent than free tuition. I teach at a community college. My students are willing to take on debt to advance their careers, but too many miss class because their neighbor or relative can't take care of the kid(s) that day or for an extended period. Young children need care every hour of every day. If the social support network is inadequate, those students may not pass the class. They owe money for it and didn't advance their careers.
If child care if free or affordable, more students could take classes and get to the finish line.
5
Great universal income (from the government) even for those who don’t desire to work, government healthcare, government housing all this and intoxicating children’s minds in government childcare. Groupthink, socialism, communism, what have we become?
9
Affordable high-quality childcare for those who work is not the same as universal income or group-think at all. Creating functional labor markets where people can afford to work is crucial for healthy capitalism.
3
@Peter Casale If you look back on recent history you'll see we spent a great deal of time and attention upon social as well as economic factors in presidential requests to congress concerning decisions to go to war.
Vietnam was a decision made of a threat of what was termed "domino effect" out of concern that the Soviet Union and China had a healthier GNP than anyone else, but that was a myth as books were being cooked inside a closed society. If the United States were able to accept that possibility we would probably never gone to war against communism.
Since the 2nd World War elections put citizens in place to handle a variety of functions operated with taxpayer's money. That fact that more and more of those elected discredit that responsibility goes against the whole concept of income taxes and the post depression checks in place to protect citizens from Teapot Dome type economics that of recent been instituted by The Supreme Court as Citizens United without check.
Organized health and welfare instituted and operated by a paid representative is a choice we have. If you would like to pay for your parents' assisted living or you think that your children are exempt from my help if they need million dollar health care due to accident or disability I hope you have the dough re mi and count your buttons before buttoning up. Right now you are looking at your own assisted living in the last years of your life @ $8,000 per month without Medicaid.
@Peter Casale
Civilized?
Universal subsidized child care, paid 18 month maternity leave and buy in to Medicare at 50 shares the wealth creating a healthier society and is doable now. Raising taxes on the very wealthy will pay for these programs and begin to balance the inequality that has hollowed out the middle class. More social services that all citizens enjoy eases stress on families and creates new jobs. Many countries are doing this and more successfully. Democrats, are you listening?
7
@Laura Shortell
The middle class, long the whipping class of progressives in order to con votes from them, is robust, healthy, expanding, prospering and in far better shape over the past two years alone than at any other time in decades. Being a success denier does not make this critical area of this argument true, an no matter how many times this untruth is uttered, it will never be true.
The importance of Pre-K childcare cannot be overstated. The first few years of life is devoted to brain development. You want a healthy society? A more level playing field for minorities? Better schools with better-prepared students? It all starts with taking care of our youngest and most impressionable. This is the one most crucial way to "make America great again."
6
Childcare and some eldercare has long been considered an expense to be absorbed by family budgets when that care is provided by family within the family by women. Back in the 1960's, when I wasn't quite sure what was being discussed or why - I was a kid myself - the grownups discussed who should be paid for raising the children of single mothers who might themselves have to go to school or to work. The idea that there be some sort of wage attached to raising one's own child was considered "ok" only if that wage came with strings such as public oversight and stigma aimed at preventing future unplanned pregnancies. This stigma led to the breaking of many mother/child bonds- mostly Caucasian mother/child bonds. Right/wrong, us/them distinctions likely underpin a system where America's supposedly most important social unit is often squeezed out of existence because of lack of communal funding. We'll fund new athletic stadiums because they'll make money, but we won't consider stigma free funding of mothers to raise their own young children, at least, we wouldn't until now. NOW, the same conservative forces who lectured women not to have children they couldn't afford to raise on their own are blaming childless women for not "replacing" themselves in the taxpaying workforce. Daycare for all is one piece of the puzzle.
4
Is this really what most parents of infants and toddlers want - both parents working full time outside the home while the infant/toddler spends most of its time in daycare? Maybe so, but I have trouble believing that. Yes, daycare is expensive, but it seems like the price is warranted and maybe actually too low for what you’re getting. It SHOULD be expensive for one adult to focus all their attention on one or two young children! In contrast, we know that college and housing costs are ridiculously inflated today. Why not fix housing and college costs instead of devoting tax money to universal daycare? That way, most young adults would automatically have more discretionary income, and they could choose what to spend it on, including daycare if they want.
4
This is the richest nation the world has ever known. If other first world nations can provide free day care and college education—so can we. Couples need to work 2 jobs today.
1
While whining about cost, the author simultaneously argues for credentialism, sneering at child care provided by the neighborhood (usually) woman. Yes, she might park the kids before the TV and not know how to respond to emergencies – if the parents are silly enough to choose someone like that. But, then again, parents might do precisely the same. It’s rather silly to impose requirements on those who watch kids that we don’t impose on those who bear them.
Those spiffy daycare centers and licensing requirements come at a hefty price. Kids have been attended to by older/other (usually) women since the species evolved. Usually, this means women who actually raised kids and whom the parents of said kids trust are entrusted with them, rather than handing them off to a bunch of (usually) very young college indoctrinated (usually) women who have (usually) never borne or raised a child.
In short, if your kids go to the house of the woman next door, they are no worse off than they would be if they stayed in your own home (as respects physical threats) and the cost is likely to be a lot lower.
That is what my SO and I did with our many children; entrusted them to experienced women who lacked a state imprimatur but who had raised kids of their own. The solution to the “crisis” is to let parents choose the option best suited for their kids without massive amount of state regulation.
5
I’m glad your child care situation worked for you, however, many people have gone down the same path and experienced abuse, neglect, or just poor care. In rural areas especially, families lack a choice of providers and are often forced to leave their children with the town babysitter who is far from qualified. Center-based programs in urban areas struggle to hire and retain teachers because they can’t pay them decent wages or offer benefits-rural programs struggle even more. Your assertion that women who are not mothers themselves are not qualified or not as good at providing care is just wrong. Becoming a parent doesn’t make one an expert in child development or health. Many child care teachers have at least a minimum training in appropriate practice and quality public child care could ensure highly-trained care. Teachers often serve as a source of experience and advice for parents and can work as a team with families to provide a consistent, loving environment for children and research shows this practice improves child outcomes. The “just leave them with another mom you trust” practice is rarely feasible or beneficial to the children.
1
Parents could still choose the neighbor next door. Affordable day care is a major problem for young families today.
1
This is truly an issue that requires deep thinking and probably does not result in universal free or inexpensive child care. Infants require intensive care in the first year. Each newborn has its own personality, health issues, bonding issues. Putting babies just a few weeks old in the care of strangers (even kind strangers) takes away that mothers' eye for trouble and puts them at risk of being ignored while serious health issues are damaging them. Under age 2 or 3 when children become verbal, the idea of sending them to a standard day care is iffy at best.
I see the trend to single parenting - years ago when I was a young woman and single adoptions were just beginning - and then for older, hard to place childeren - and I wasn't in a serious relationship, I did consider it. What convinced me that it wasn't an ideal move was that just one person, responsible for financing the family, and then finding time for that child, would literally leave no time or resources left over and no pinch hitter if she or the child had an emergency. While not judging single parenthood, it should be part of the discussion how that state puts parenting and child care on slippery footing and that perhaps it is not a good idea except when absolutely necessary.
It seems to me that we, as a society, are concerned with the rights and welfare of adults over children and that we define equality and empowerment only in terms of the workforce. Not a good place to be.
5
State provided daycare really means that childless people will pay for the care of other people’s children. How can this be justified? Only by the pension contributions of the children when they become adults to childless people when they retire. Therefore the fair thing to do is to pay parents according to their children’s expected tax contributions. Rich people will be having a lot more children then. Subsidizing daycare is not a good idea because plenty of research already suggests that children in daycare are more violently temperamental than children taken care of by their mothers. Progressives who don’t admit this increase in risk clearly care more about their pet idea of equality than about the welfare of children and society at large.
5
@ett
Citation for daycare causing issues? I'm a child therapist and I have yet to see any reputable studies showing daycare causes issues for children.
@ett
Can we also then reclaim whatever parents received in child tax credits, EITC, dependent care credits, subsidized childcare, school lunches, WIC, etc. etc. if their child turns out to be a burden so society -- criminal, addicted, disabled, low intelligence?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Parents need to be held accountable for outcomes, not just mindlessly rewarded for producing.
1
@Kj
This is a good analysis of the science.https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-daycare
Important parts include “Relying on observational studies has drawn fierce criticism from many in the field, particularly statisticians.” The best data comes from “example, nearly two decades ago, when Quebec introduced full-day kindergarten for all five-year-olds and heavily subsidized daycare for four-year-olds, so that parents only had to pay $5 per day out of pocket. The provision of $5-a-day child care was extended to three-year-olds in 1998, two-year-olds in 1999, and all babies up to age two in 2000. "Universal Childcare, Maternal Labor Supply, and Family Well-Being," went on to win the 2009 Doug Purvis Memorial Prize for the most significant written contribution to Canadian economic policy. The article concludes as follows:
We report striking evidence that children's outcomes have worsened since the program was introduced. We also find suggestive evidence that families we study became more stressed with the introduction of the program. This is manifested in increased aggressiveness and anxiety for the children; more hostile, less consistent parenting for the adults; and worse adult mental health and relationship satisfaction.
1
We need to change the approach: Day care should be considered part of the discussion and debate about infrastructure. Just because it's traditionally been considered "women's work" instead of the "manly work" of building bridges, doesn't mean it's any less important to the very structure of our society. Funding for day care should be part of infrastructure funding, building bridges for new mothers (and fathers) so they can continue to be connected to their work and community.
10
I love this column. This is exactly what Democrats need to tell middle class voters. And rather that taxes and spending being a zero sum game, what we spend on day care will come back in the form of workers earning more and then spending more.
Unlike what conservatives tell us, wealth does not trickle down, but the spending of the working class, on clothes, food, even an occasional vacations, does trickle up on profits for the consumer sector.
7
@Terry McKenna I don't think most middle class voters are looking for more free or subsidized stuff -- that's what the welfare class is interested in, and Democrats, for obvious reasons, already have that demographic on their side.
If we want a population that can replace itself, we're going to need to make our society more friendly to young families. There are at least 6 obstacles I am aware of:
1. Housing. An affordable 2 or 3 bedroom home in a place with a decent school district, in a community with a decent job market.
2. Education - similar to 1. Quality of public schools must be good everywhere. Not just in places with expensive homes.
3. Child care. This costs upwards of $1000- per month per child. 2 children will cost $2000- per month.
4. Student debt overhang. Young people are shadowed in their best child bearing years by college debt.
5. Health care. It has to be affordable for everybody, particularly those with less job security.
6. Better societal support when things go off the rails, as they regularly do, when raising children. Developmental disabilities, drug addiction, behavioral problems, etc.
Right now, the period of maximum insecurity, maximum job stress, and maximum financial stress seems to overlap with the optimum age for raising a family. If we want a population that replaces itself, this will have to change.
12
Sure, on top of all the other give-aways, add free child care. But, seriously, why would this even be necessary since all the other elements of either the New Green Deal or other "progressive" notions will put so many Americans out of work, couldn't we simply stay home, unemployed, and take care of our kids ourselves?
4
The New Green Deal will create thousands of new tax paying living wage jobs. There is s lot of work that needs to be done.
1
@Zejee
The NGD will create no new jobs because it is merely political posturing to con voters into re-electing its sponsors. As unrealistic and impossible hoaxes go it is among the most heinous ever. But let’s say it will create “thousands of jobs.” What will happen to the millions of workers already in better jobs when they’re displaced by this cruel scam that wouldn’t have a chance of being implemented in 100 years, much less ten???
Providing government-supported childcare is definitely pro-life and thus deserves the political support of conservatives and liberals alike.
8
@Delmo
"Pro" human life. What about all the other species we are destroying every single day due to unfettered human population growth?
1
@Delmo Well, this would be true if you were concerned that parents taking care of their own children would do a much worse job than the government.
1
One organization that has developed an institutional approach to day care and pre-school is the US military. It was needed and welcomed by military families to allow them to concentrate on the mission. A local community-based daycare program similar to the way we manage and fund public education would not be so distant to our country's values.
10
Parenthood is a 100-percent voluntary and avoidable state. If it's the lifestyle you want, plan, save up, find a stable, committed partner (and get to know her/him for a few years before conceiving), be marketable, have a family support system in place, have life, health and disability insurance. If you can't come up with all of the above, you simply are not ready or equipped to be a parent. Can't always get what we want in life.
Do not come to me for more of my wages to support parental perks until and unless we already have excellent programs funded and in place for people who are victims of involuntary misfortune. That would include medicare for all, mental health inpatient and outpatient programs, substance abuse rehab, vocational training -- all free, high-quality and taxpayer funded.
UNTIL all of those people are taken care of, entitled parents can live on one income, save their pennies and prepare in advance for the costs of child rearing. Not interested in subsidizing more shiftless dependents on an already overpopulated planet.
11
@Earthling coming back and talk to us when you're in an assisted living facility you can't afford.
3
This is the richest nation the world has ever known. We can afford to take care of all our citizens.
3
What the child care industry needs is serious regulation and control.
My son has two children who attend Kindercare in California before and after school. I think it's about four hours a day but, because their mother has to drop them off early and have them taken to school they pay almost $1,000 out of pocket per month along with the exorbitant prices the state pays.
It's just more corporate welfare and must be stopped. Give tax credits to the parents - not the caregivers and/or BIG corporations.
3
If we get rid of occupational licensing for daycare workers and strict regulations of them prices would go down. Don’t neglect this big aspect
1
Most state licensing standards are already low. Some simply require the provider have a working phone and smoke alarms. Why would we want to lower these standards?
I find it interesting that "all of a sudden" we want to include the fathers into the discussion as the article states; "Children are a father's responsibility too." Yet, when it comes to a women's right to choose to abort her child, there is NEVER any mention of the father's responsibility. How convenient for women that men are dispensable until they are needed.
4
According to progressives, all men are good for is sperm and money.
1
Why free college but not free child care? Simple: Babies don’t vote, they don’t volunteer for political campaigns, they are not thought leaders.
5
We've had our 2.5 year old in daycare since she was six months. It's a small fortune where we live, $1,500 per month for one child. But I'm happy to pay it because I feel our daughter is getting high quality care, lots of socialization, and jump-starting her education. Quite frankly, I don't see a government-run daycare center being able to meet the quality she receives. We are not a privileged family, we worked our tails off, have advanced degrees, and work in higher ed. Facts is; you want quality, you have to pay for it.
6
@Jason
I expect if you were able to send your daughter to a government funded daycare, the experience would be much degraded even if the cost per child were the same or greater.
A willingness to spend your own money on something shows you value it. I don't think there should be universal daycare but if there was universal daycare, my hope is that it would be subsidized based on means rather than free so that those families using it made a sacrifice to be there. In that case, even the family that is fully supported by the safety net should have to spend some of their discretionary income. Perhaps if many can not afford daycare, they could work in the daycare centers there own children attended creating.
When my kids were young, they attended both public and private schools and there was quite a difference. When you go to a private school, your children are surrounded by children of other families that care so much about education they are willing to self fund what they could get for free from a government school. The Montessori schools my children attended spent far less per child than public schools. However, things did not get stolen there and the behavior of the children was otherwise much better as well.
The worst ranked school district in my area is not the poorest funded. However, I believe it serves families that do not care much about education. I suspect many of the families it serves get little or no money from private employment.
1
Every child deserves quality. Most mothers in the US are struggling to make ends meet in low wage jobs. Their children don’t deserve quality care?
1
@Zejee
If quality daycare is expensive then why can't a parent provide a daycare service in their own home solving their own income issue and providing quality daycare to the community for a fee.
My guess is that the free daycare exists today is very low quality but I could be wrong.
Not long ago I listened to a Ted Talk which included an account of three lower income single worker two parent families. The trio of mothers formed a clean service while two of the three would work in the business where the third watched all the children. The responsibilities rotated and the money from the business was split equally.
There solution took no money from their neighbors through force of law taxes but rather put rather gave back.
My point is there are many non government solutions out there. If you need extra income and cannot afford daycare, why not provide it for a fee solving your own money problem while at the same time socializing your children and providing care for other families.
1
Day care is almost always horrible for children, including mine. Instead let’s use that money to provide a stipend to mothers (or fathers) so they can stay home with their little ones. I didn’t realize how lucky I was to be raised by my own mother. Yes, some mothers need more than just financial support, so offer those who need it education and counseling too. The dwindling number of children born these days are a precious resource needing as much love and protection as we can provide. They won’t find this in daycare.
5
@ReginaInCivitatem
So true. The research confirms this. Parents should get a stipend proportional to their children’s expected tax payments to OTHER people’s pensions.
@ReginaInCivitatem
No. We simply do not need to reward and subsidize human reproduction. There are plenty of people on this planet and less and less need for human labor every single day. Open the borders and we can fill all of our worker and consumer needs ad infinitum.
I will vehemently lobby against any additional financial incentives to be pocketed by parents. Want kids? Finance it yourself. Save up in advance for those parental leaves and you won't need to pick others' pockets. My parents managed to do so 55 years ago.
4
@ReginaInCivitatem Great idea! And let's let each mother choose the amount. It should be enough to support the entire family and go on at least 3 vacations each year.
1
Great idea, but why stop at day care for all? There are plenty of other things that would improve the quality of peoples’ lives. Here is a partial list to add to the New New Deal:
PS4 All (get it?) - I mean, who doesn’t like to play Fortnite? It’s enjoyable, builds friendships and helps pass the time. There may need to be a sin tax or something to pay for skins and other loot, but that can be solved later.
Tesla’s for Everyone - this one seems like a no brainer. Everyone needs a car and this car is a twofer (See Green New Deal).
Uggs All Around - this one may need some tweaking, but I really like their cozy styles. It’s not entirely clear how they will play in the warmer climes, but most of those states don’t matter.
I’ve got a few more that I’m working on, but I’m pretty sure these are down the middle of the fairway for the Progressive platform in 2020.
16
@Veritas
If you need more ideas for free stuff, see the Green New Deal FAQ. This is an actual policy document. Remind yourself of that when you examine what seems to have been written by a sophomore Poly-Sci/Marxist Studies major with a minor in Pie-In-The-Sky. Again, this is an actual "progressive" document.
https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=5729035-Green-New-Deal-FAQ
The challenge here isn't that any of these goals are not ambitious or worthwhile it is that all of them are both.
If we are realistic Obama with complete control of both Chambers managed to achieve partial healthcare reform.
So if keeping promises matters primary season should be about picking one item to do properly or defining the incremental improvements in each area that are realistic. Otherwise the next Democratic president will face a Border Wall moment...
1
A few others have gone missing from a list of comprehensive benefits, providing support people need to live. For instance, an employee-funded pension. Also, Guaranteed basic income, especially for those whose ability to earn a living is destroyed or constrained by Artificial Intelligence. Finally, workers need advocates to fight for their wage increases or benefits. Absent these advocates, exconomic inequalities spin out of control. Now, all these form a decent state sponsored support list, cradle to grave, support: Healthcare, childcare, work advocates, income care and retirement care. These programs will be paid by taxing the super rich, who have escaped what they would have owed in taxes between the ‘40’s and 70’s, right here in the USA, due to giveaways by Reagan and the GOP.
4
The list of free government services sought by the Democrats is apparently limitless. Meanwhile the Republicans are busy enriching the rich at the cost of the rest of us. Deficits soar.
1
Daycare for all? How about high quality preschool instead? A nationwide investment in 0-K preschool combined with a national service program that asks those that can to give back for what they receive would go a long way towards making America an even better place to live!
Studies repeatedly show that the youngest years are the single most important in the brain development of a child. Why do we spend so much money on universal care for those at the end of life and so little on those at the beginning?!
5
So, to sum up leftist thinking, if one is pregnant with a child, what one does with that is totally private and the state should stay out of it (except to help pay for that choice). If one delivers the child, then the state must be involved in raising it, from paying for its daycare to regulating how that money gets used and what those children get taught until they reach school age. So stay out of my bedroom, but be in my nursery by the time I bring the child home.
10
I agree 100%. I was raising this point, to no avail, when my college aged son was 3 or 4. Even then it was an obvious need, with most moms and dads both working. It needn’t be entirely free, but a gov’t subsidy would help enormously, and it would help keep women in the work force. France has such a program, as must other European countries.
6
In Belgium daycare is subsidized by the government, which oversees safety, and priced by income so every citizen with a job has access to it. Children typically start going to preschool at age 3. There is private daycare too, but it is mostly used by expats.
I may have escaped the insane US daycare prices, but still am confronted with how everything, I mean everything is priced to maximum profit here. From $150 per month per kid sports clubs (excl. gear and competitions) to $50 ball game tickets to watch LEGO sized men play with a $10 drink in our hands.
6
Going to fix America by political means? Prioritize! Work on many things at once, but balance priorities so that big changes move along steadily while easy small fixes, "low hanging fruit", are plucked early and often to prove progress. Day Care for All should come early if it has the votes easily, but Medicare for All is much more important to those same children and families whenever it can be done. Do the doable while working toward the hard-to-do.
3
Yes, free childcare would be great for parents. But what time is it going to be at? 9 to 5 when low paying jobs pay the least? Or is it to be available 24/7 so that a parent can use the time to their best advantage? Maybe Grandpa loves to care for the child from 2 to 4 but the job lasts from 1 to 9. Or, maybe, a single parent loves to be with their child and care for them but 5 is the witching hour when they are tired, a meal is needed, and young child is overwhelmed with hungry and tired?
And, how many high quality child care workers are there really? Paying people more does not make them inherently more empathic or patient. How long can a person remain a high quality child care worker? Doesn't the best job usually wear us down until most of us switch to auto pilot?
2
My husband was career Navy, which meant we had access to the over 800 subsidized Child Development Centers on bases throughout the world.
So I always worked, unlike most of my contemporaries, who found working too hard to afford. And then, after staying at home when their children were small, they found that employers were not anxious to hire someone who had been out of the workforce for so long. Because I always worked, we put three children through college with no debt, and are now enjoying a comfortable retirement.
And our children are doing fine. They learned, in the various child care centers, to get along with a wide variety of adults and children. And now they are able to plan for the financial future of their own families without worrying about paying off college loans, or caring for indigent parents.
3
Why are so many women single mothers? This is a more pressing question to me than why we don’t have universal childcare.
15
@Brad, A valid point that also troubles me. I wish someone would address the many reasons for this.
4
@Brad Perhaps better asked: why are so many men failing in their responsibilities to their children, our society, and their mates?
3
@Brad Well, Brad, from Texas where the anti-abortion movement has all but eliminated women's access to a safe means of terminating an unwanted pregnancy, should we begin with THAT? Or, Brad, maybe there are a lot of guys who's solipsism makes women's issues so foreign they just don't get why the girls just don't get married.
2
This is an important issue and I firmly support the idea of quality, affordable childcare for all... but the author's fatalism about gender roles is disheartening. We know that women bear a disproportionate burden of care work. We know that the gender gap in the U.S. is even wider than many other countries. This seems like a point that is also worth pressing. We can ask for subsidized childcare, but we shouldn't do it based on the premise that men just won't do more. If we want to strengthen families, it seems like policies that would allow paid maternity *and* paternity leave could be a good starting point. As it happens, some men enjoy taking care of their children when they are able to do so.
Safe harbor for all is a public good, whether that's for a baby/toddler or an otherwise healthy adult with a disability or an elderly person who needs companionship and/or a watchful eye during the day. For those who trot out the "why should I pay for xxx, which I don't use" argument, remember that you may be a senior citizen with dementia one day -- who will care for you? A safe and integrated society is something we should all strive for, and paying taxes is the price of civilization.
3
All the progressive ideas in all the world won't pass a GOP senate.
It's classic cart before the horse indulgence.
The GOP, for examples, still opposes the ERA, contraception and gun control.
Governing requires more than fantasy.
1
High quality and affordable are oxymorons. As the article pointed out, most day care workers are in dire financial straits themselves. Here's a thought. Why not mandate mothers get a paid year off after a child's birth and father's get a paid year off for the child's second year or vice versa? Both parents bow out of the work force for a year, then return without loss. And they're both equal.
Single mothers? Ok. You can have that second year covered by another family member you designate who receives pay. Limit the benefit to two children. The world IS overpopulated, but we don't want to go the route of Japan as a country.
Age 2 and up is preschool, through local public schools or private schools. Let's pay these folks a salary equivalent to an elementary school teacher (even though I think they deserve more).
6
My wife and I figured out daycare when we lived in the USA, but it was expensive and difficult, and we benefitted from employer provided help. Three kids within 2 years.
Living overseas, where most families are on one income but can afford assistance, it's clear that most families/women want 2+ kids. Single children families are rare, and generally headed by single mothers who often adopted. The NYT had an article on how many kids women want vs. have on average in the USA, and when the financing of a decent lifestyle is possible, it's clear they have more (at least in my group).
Looking at expensive urban area professionals, who seem to live in Democratic run cities but not make the connection with massive costs, too many only have one kid because kids are "expensive." SOmehow poor people have more. So clearlythere is a lifestyle expectation. Despite their poor politics, I'd like these people to have more kids, as they'd be likely to be productive taxpayers. How about NYC figures out how to do this well, and we can expand the model if other areas want to pay?
Day care cost is an issue that has a profound but mostly unaddressed financial impact on parents and families. In a recent study looking at the causes of the declining U.S. birth rate, the number one reason given by women for the decision to postpone or forgo child bearing altogether was the cost of daycare. I know several young two parent families for whom child care costs consumed most of one parent's earnings- the birth of a second child forced one parent out of the workforce because day care costs would have exceeded total earnings, even with the current modest tax relief for child care costs. With stagnating wages and college debt making two earners a necessity for many young families to just get by, the loss of one income makes even very frugal young families unprepared to meet unexpected costs- a child's emergency room bill, a home repair, or a dying car needed for transport to work, and financial chaos ensues.That is not even addressing the impact on single working parents, who often qualify for and rely on other government programs to survive because of high child care expenses, or drop out of the workforce altogether. Many people do not have family members available to watch the children for free, because the family members still need to work with higher retirement ages. When the government needed women to join the workforce during WW II, it established government run day cares and gave businesses incentives to create their own. It worked well then, and would now.
12
I become frustrated every time I hear about calls for “good quality affordable childcare”. This will never happen. The quality of childcare providers is too often atrocious even when you have money to spend on it. Their pay is so low that childcare providers are more often than not woefully unprepared and uneducated on childcare matters. What good does it do to children to be left with people who may not even have basic language skills while their loving parents are away at work? If we want to change our society for the better, we need to change work policies. We need to force employers to once and for all respect their employees’ personal lives. This will not only support close bonding and relationships between parents and children, but it will also ease the intractable depression and anxiety that so often plagues working adults who are forced to be plugged in to work 24/7.
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to afford full time childcare in order to keep up with my very demanding job. However, there hasn’t been a day when I thought my child was benefiting by being left with a childcare provider. In my view, this is not the right way to raise children and prepare them for the world around them. I hope one day this changes.
5
@Ange
"We need to force employers"
If it's such a great idea, why do you believe force is necessary? Are you smarter or more ethical than millions of small-business owners? Who are you to force them into actions that may bankrupt them or limit their ability to expand and hire more workers?
2
With no limits of what is acceptable and unacceptable treatment of employees, our lives have become a race to the bottom. Business is about profits, not about employee physical and mental health. In terms of “forcing employers” to respect their employees, I have worked, hired and trained employees in several countries that have such strict policies. Their economic health is superior to the US and their communities are functional without the extreme alienation and loneliness we experience every day. To do this, employees have to stop being saddled with the complexity of administering health plans, childcare, disability, retirement and other benefits. Let businesses do business and the government should use payroll and other tax money to provide a seamless and portable social safety net. It’s not hard. We just need to break through the GOP’ uneducated hysteria that portrays common sense social policies as communist ideology.
Legislation that addresses unequal opportunities and outcomes such as affirmative action needs to start at the start. Waiting until college age is usually too late, the disparities are ingrained. Progressive economic ideas like universal preschool address ecconomic disparities for all Americans. By virtue of size of total population, 48% of poor Americans are white. Policies that help them should attract them as voters. Maybe if the left will see them as part of their base and not the enemy, they can be peeled away from their race baiting cynical rich white masters. Progressive economic policies should help every other struggling American regardless of ancestry, gender, or sexuality. Identity policies should ensure no Americans are cut out of equal opportunities. By addressing universal needs, progressive economics are smart politics. The government spending will be high, but not as high as current costs and with better outcomes. For instance, the figure 2.5 trillion is put out as figure for universal health care, but rarely in context with 3.5 trillion we currently spend on a "system" that leaves over 25% of us un or under insured. Save a trillion and cover all of us? Cal it socialism, I call it smart. Universal preschool is a great first step to helping the U.S. gain the most from the most people.
3
Investing in healthcare and by extension childcare are good ideas for the long term. A healthier citizenry with more opportunities would become a strategic long term engine for growth. This isn't "rocket science," but rather common sense. Yet why is it so opposed? Perhaps ask Big Pharma, who profits off of keeping people sick. Ask the other vested interests who wish to preserve the current status quo.
2
This issue is vital -- and it may, in part, also be the easiest to address. I was a full-time co-parent with my partner of our three children, and daycare was a constant challenge for both of us in the pre-school years. But starting with kindergarten, I was struck the peculiar national habit of ending school at 2:30 or 3:00 when work for most didn't end until 5:00. At the time, our son's school in rural Maine *did*provide "aftercare" to bridge the gap. Either that -- or simply extending the school day to end at the same time as the workday -- would be a phenomenally easy way to at least address this issue for younger school-age children and their families.
2
Ask the teacher’s union about that one.
The solutions are staring Americans right in their collective eye:
1) Quit voting conservatives into office. They neither believe in nor support families (even though they say they do).
2) Encourage kids in high school to understand family planning. Teach them about family finances and birth control. Empower young people to make better decisions.
9
How about funding programs for uneducated and poor women/couples on the cost of raising children?
This should start in school as part of home economics courses, along with another sorely lacking curriculum – money and credit management – and continue as public service announcement advertising.
4
Goes back again to responsible decision making on both sides, men and women, as to their choices to do the things they do that bring children into the world. Yes, children are expensive; however, so is a New York Times or cable TV subscription, recreational marijuana, cigarette smoking, and other consumptions that are luxuries (which this article seems to promote as to relieve anxiety) rather than necessities. Kinda like planning for retirement. The New York Times and the Democrats wants those who do plan to pay for those who don’t. Perhaps the better conversation should be what defines responsibility sexuality and parenting (hint: its a man and a woman committed to each other in providing the stable environment essential to raising a child) and that the role that the sexual revolution and mood-altering drugs play in disrupting that responsibility.
9
@Jim Hey, Jim, responsible sexuality is a great idea. The problem is there's a large movement in this country that doesn't believe women can make a responsible choice about their own bodies which would include their sexual choices. This movement doesn't believe a woman is capable of making her own moral choice about whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. The movement insists they have to make that choice for her. It's one thing to ask people to behave responsibly it becomes another thing to tell them there is only one way to do that.
1
It's called Universal Pre-K and it's growing in acceptance; 3 states already have it and is being proposed in a few more already. Started as a program to help financially strapped, lower income bracket students/families to get some stability in going to school, getting some healthy food ect., and help with education...must have accomplished all that and more, as somehow this program has delved into 'universal pre-k' for all 4 year old's with the high costs for daycare.
And we are afraid of socialism when it benefits all but my children. Ahh the hypocrisy that resides in America.
4
Even before day care how about free contraception care for all. This might be impactful and reduce social needs all-around. It is logical that having kid is expensive and the smartest means of managing economy is to not incur expenses that you cannot afford.
6
@terry brady - That's very important but take into account that there is no safe and reliable method of birth control. Without safe and accessible abortion services, even with available birth control, there will be unplanned pregnancies.
I hope all Democratic candidates running for any office in 2020 (plus as much of the public as possible) reads this essay and takes heed. Ms Pollitt, however, has made convincing and comprehensive arguments for universal day care in every respect but one, and that is for the benefit of the children. The window of opportunity for language development opens sometime before birth and closes around puberty. Tons of empirical evidence, early childhood development theory, and modern neuroscience all show that the earliest years of growth are not only the most important, they are the critical and irreplaceable basis for all later development. A child born of a healthy, well nourished pregnancy, raised in a language-rich environment and enjoying consistent and positive adult regard, will arrive at kindergarten or first grade with an advantage that is unbridgeable when compared to a child raised in neglect. Equal access to optimized early childhood development for all should be a civil right. Universal day care would be a huge step in the right direction.
7
@david virgien Absolutely! Well said.
If you make decent child care arrangements (whether it’s day care, parental leave, flexible work schedules and the like) women’s issues or feminist issues, you make a decision that you don’t really want to win— you want to make a point.
Half the population is women and maybe a bit more than half of women would support better government supported child care arrangements.
Fewer still are mothers, for whom these issues are important.
That’s not a majority... or even close to one.
Include men, however, and that minority suddenly becomes a majority.
Stay at home dads face all the problems that stay at home moms face, with one additional burden: invisibility.
So the question for leaders on child care and other “women’s” issues is this: Do you want to win an us vs them battle to vindicate your identity, or do you want to join people together to fight for actual policy achievements?
On the progressive left, far too many people seem to want to drive over he cliff of identity politics, losing, but gloriously!
Flags flying, trumpets blaring, knowing that they stood against oppression and changed nothing.
How about a radical idea? Do not have kids until you have a plan and means to raise them without government help. It is a personal decision (either poorly or well made) to have children. Why should citizens without children subsidize those who can wantonly have 2, 3, or 6 children at societal expense?
If anything, global citizens should be talking about limiting every family on the planet to one child. Over 10 generations, that would place the world population at a much more sustainable level without any threat of global warming.
Instead, "Day Care for All" diffuses responsibility and promotes subsidized, unchecked population growth (and hence global resource use and global warming).
We humans are the locusts of the planet and will face the environmental and societal consequences of over-reproduction in the coming centuries.
11
@James - OK, why should I, a walker and user of a bicycle, have to pay for roads and public transport. Let the people who use highways pay for their own roads. After all, they freely chose a living situation and job that is dependent on roads.
OK. That is a ridiculous argument. But so is your argument about publicly funded pre-school and all of free public education, as well. It is well established that the higher the education of a country, the more prosperous the country and the happier the people.
4
Whether or not to have a child isn’t always a choice. Sometimes events conspire; sometimes free will is an illusion.
But supposing it is a choice, that raising a family is like getting a dog, how much financial planning do you recommend? Should we have the whole annuity up front? Post a bond in case of financial reversal? Should we, in effect, make children illegal unless you can afford daycare on 10% of your salary? But the bank in charge of your life choices?
The thing is, all the self-righteous moralism on earth won’t dissuade people from raising children. Pollitt has 86% of women bearing children, and maybe 17% can afford daycare on less than onerous terms. They aren’t impressed by your sniffing at their profligate lifestyle.
More important are the children. Whatever judgment you feel entitled to, the children experience the actual world. If poor children are poorly cared for, are you then satisfied because the chickens came home to roost?
@James What in the world makes you think that we have centuries left? Do the math!
Perhaps Bernie left it out but there was a 2016 Presidential candidate who suggested:
"Significantly increase child care investments so that no family in America has to pay more than 10 percent of its income to afford high-quality child care.
The cost of child care has increased by nearly 25 percent during the past decade, while the wages of working families have stagnated.
While families across America are stretched by skyrocketing costs, child care has become more important than ever before—both as a critical work support for the changing structure of American families and as an essential component of a child’s early development.
These high costs severely squeeze working families, prevent too many children from getting a healthy start, and act as a disincentive for parents to stay in the workforce. Hillary will fight for every family in America to have access to high quality, affordable child care by significantly increasing the federal government’s investment in child care subsidies and providing tax relief for the cost of child care to working families."
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/early-childhood-education/
7
When Bill Clinton became president, I had young children and high hopes that early childhood care both pre-school and kindergarten, and including after school programs, would be a high priority for the new administration.
Instead, it was the rights of gays in the military that became the first public agenda item. I was astounded that such a small group, numbering a few hundred to a few thousand, had interests that took priority over tens of millions of other Americans.
The hard lesson was that many of the people who are drawn to public service as lobbyists, aides, interns and policy wonks in Washington, DC are disproportionately young, gay and childless. Otherwise, they could not afford to live in DC.
As in so many areas of legislative focus in the current administration, our laws are being made by people who do not share our interests, concerns and truly worrying threats to our families - because they do not have families.
6
Today, public schools accept children as young as two years in their preschool programs. The staffing is well educated and licensed; the classrooms are equipped; nurses and guidance counselors on hand. The kids are having a ball.
How difficult -- or outrageously more expensive -- could it be to tweak the system and take care of our country's babies in the same place where we already are caring for their bigger brothers and sisters?
14
@Rea Tarr
What happens to the infant between birth and two? What about the parents? Does one of them get out of the work force until the child is eligible to to go to school?
@Joy B
My comment clearly proposed that the system might be expanded to include "babies." I assumed that people would understand this as meaning from birth upwards.
Little kids don’t vote and mothers are too ashamed to stand up and ask for help, because (as many of the commenters here point out) women are conditioned to view everything about their child as their responsibility and nobody else’s. Raised in Europe I am not ashamed to say that, while it would have benefited society for me to have had more than one kid (my child does well at school and is very kind and empathic to other kids), I can only afford one child because of the costs here in the US. People who have many kids here either are wealthy or have found a way to get government help by claiming poverty. If you are in the middle class, you are on your own. Based off of math, it’s fair to say the next generation will predominently come from wealthy or poor families, because middle class has far fewer kids. Those kids will be raised predominantly with the view that families are on their own. If each class breeds freely except the working class, will we have a strong worker class in twenty years? I think not.
6
The very thought that daycare is not part of an essential public school system is ludacris to me and my family members. I have supported this idea for a long time and it is no surprise to me that Senator Sanders long ago proposed this essential concept. The next question is how do we make him the Democratic Party Candidate in 2020. I have poured large sums into his campaign here and was bitterly disappointed that my Party denied that chance. Here in Washington State after getting 75 % of caucus vote, a standard way for a candidate to get this states delegates the Democratic Party deliberately denied him their delegates. It is one reason that I can not support our current governor for President. I voted for Mrs. Clinton only because I would never support any republican for such a high office. We need universal free health care, free education thru college and even graduate school and on, a national minimum wage of $25/ hr., and anything else that will put this country in the leadership of the world. As the greatest, large democracy we can have nothing less.
@Tlaw
National wage of $25/hour? That alone would bankrupt the economy and force many, if not all small businesses out of business, leaving the populace to shop only at places like Wal-Mart where the cost of goods would be astronomical due to the radical increase in labor costs. All of these newly unemployed aren't going to have much to buy with to begin with.
3
Investing in early childhood care is the best return for money that any country can have, if you want to look at it in purely economic terms. All the research confirms the importance of the first five years - unfortunately policy does not reflect this understanding.
21
And the best childhood care are two loving and committed heterosexual parents providing a stable environment for that child.
2
@Uma In pure economic terms, if you look at the healthcare cost of sending infants to childcare at three months (after FMLA), you will find that they far exceed the "return" you are referring to. Formula-fed infants, the norm in daycare, as well as the chronic stress these babies endure, essentially weaken the immune system and set these children up for chronic disease later in life. The WHO puts the longterm healthcare cost in the billions of dollars. We need better maternity leave so that mothers can adequately feed their children. It should be a reproductive right to nurse your child.
Why do the two loving, committed parents have to be heterosexual?
I support the general idea of universal high-quality childcare. It obviously need to be affordable childcare. Otherwise, every one would have high-quality childcare now. I see two practical problems though.
First, you'll need to raise childcare wages enough to attract the labor needed to meet universal supply. For every child care taker, you'll need an additional care taker. That's a lot of care takers. 86% of women in their forties are mothers. You'll need 86% of the female population all over again. Where are you going to find the employees? Good help is already hard to find.
Second, a public program to provide child care is very difficult to politically support. The Nixon "family centered" argument isn't the problem either. You're immediately going to get push back from responsible parents who budget and plan versus the house down the block with twelve kids on a single income. You'll likely start something like the "welfare queen" argument all over again.
Child care is a good idea but a difficult policy. It's much easier to promote universal health insurance. Health care is a service that benefits everyone, not just parents. Parents can use their medical savings to finance health care. We still need to solve the supply problem though.
3
@Andy, your math is wrong. The article stated that 86% of women had children, not that all of those children were young enough to require daycare. Many of those women already have kids in daycare. Secondly, the caregiver to child ratio is between 1:4 to 1:10, depending on the age of the child, not 1:1. And finally, the assumption that we will need more of the “female population” is more than a little sexist. Men are more than capable of taking care of children. The male director of our daycare center does a great job, and we are glad to have him.
1
@Natasha
My example was intentionally inaccurate. I was demonstrating a point. You also forget daycare does not accept infant children. You're on your own for the first 2 or years if you're lucky. You are absolutely on your own for the first 6 months. That's the standard immunization period for basic vaccinations. There's a reason kindergarten typically starts at five or six.
It's not sexist to point out a labor shortage. You're not going to find enough nurse maids, male or female, at the current wage.
Access to affordable, reliable, and excellent childcare sounds like it should be a top agenda item for both parties. For the pro-lifers/anti-abortionists, perhaps more women with unwanted/unplanned pregnancies would choose to to have their child if they knew they’d have access to childcare so they could work and support their child. And access to child-care will help level the income disparity between women and men by allowing women to stay in the workforce if they choose and preventing their careers from taking a nosedive; preventing them from missing out on pay raises and promotions; and preventing them from losing out on retirement savings and higher earned social security benefits. Longer and paid maternity leave would also be helpful, allowing the parent to be home with their child in the first year of life without fear of losing her job. 12 weeks of unpaid time is not enough.
5
I agree with the need for affordable child care. But I disagree with the aspersion cast on moms staying home with the kids while dads work. A lot of people, perhaps most, agree that it’s best for kids and families when one parent (either mom or dad) can take care of the kids at home while they are little. Kids reap huge benefits. Yes, it’s a problem when the stay-at-home parent faces difficulty going back to work, but there are other ways to ameliorate those issues.
9
Yes!!! Thank you for this outstanding piece. I've worked extensively in early education policy, and it's a megaphone like this one that's needed to move the needle. NYC has had great success with Pre-K For All (age 4, some age 3) since it started in 2014, and could provide a template for such a national program. I'm not completely convinced about subsidizing infant care however; longer paid parental leave might be the way to go there.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Obama's preschool initiative, which is the first time in many years that the federal government put its weight behind the issue. It's not just something that the new face of the Democratic party can get behind.
Regarding the rationale, in addition to the clear benefits to families and children, a national early education program would go a long way to stabilizing the businesses that comprise the sector. Most early education providers are small businesses that operate on a shoestring because most families cannot afford the true cost of providing child care. When the government steps in with its current subsidy programs, it often exacerbates business instability with low and unpredictable child care voucher payments, and complicated funding streams that require extensive knowledge of policy and compliance. A national early education initiative would go a long way to supporting job creation and entrepreneurship in addition to everything else.
4
@Matt
"I'm not completely convinced about subsidizing infant care however; longer paid parental leave might be the way to go there."
I totally agree with the idea of enhancing parental leave. The benefits of family taking care of their infant children have been proven in several studies. The staying-at-home parent doesn't need to be the same one all the time, but parents can alternate, which in fact would give the baby the opportunity to bond with both of them when the couple has stayed together.
But parents of either sex will not fear losing their jobs or career prospects only when society stops regarding them as non committed because they have chosen to stay home to take care of their offspring.
In the case of parents who do not have a career but a job, and commitment is rather a middle-to-upper class privilege, they would not need to worry about losing it either, because their employers, by receiving a subsidy, would be required by law to keep them in their payroll.
The 21st century, however, is seeing a great increase in independent work as the gig and shared economies expand. How will these subsidies be applied to independent young workers should also be a subject of debate, particularly among prospective candidates, given the fact that these will be their constituency in the near future.
1
I believe the exorbitant cost of daycare does more to drive inequality in society than just about any other factor.
If all you can get is a low paying job then you can’t afford daycare. It makes financial sense to stay home - and likely live off entitlement programs. The children in this case miss out on valuable learning opportunities which impacts their education. The cycle reinforces itself generation after generation.
The Democrats should stop talking about free college for all and make universal childcare a pillar of the platforms. The Republicans should support this as well. With such disdain for “welfare queens,” this would actually do more to get people off entitlement programs then any other policy I can think of.
5
@Andy Spence I disagree that toddlers who stay home with a loving adult to care for them are missing valuable learning opportunities. I watch my 27-month-old grandchild and have since he was born. We have regular outings, have a granny playgroup weekly, go to language school and music school. He's known his alphabet since 18 months and numbers 1-20. He loves his books. He can read small words. Depends on the quality of home care. Plus he has my undivided attention all day long.
A hired nanny can do this too, but from the nannies I've watched in the park, this is not happening. Day care centers? Nightmares! Toddlers who never nap, who don't eat well, who get little personal attention from their caregiver. Not to mention the contagious germ pits they are.
3
By now advocates of day care for children misses a very large population of people needing day care and whose wives, mothers and children provide: the sick, the injured, the demented, and the mentally ill.
Everything mentioned here applies. How many children give up jobs to care for parents? How many spouses must give up jobs for an older child or husband or parent to care giving duties. Day care for all; Medicare for all; not just day care for young children.
Is it needed, yes. Can families pay for it? Most can. But for some, public support will be essential. we should as a society push for quality care for all; we can afford it if those who can pay, pay and those who can't get a subsidy.
5
Any such program should be tied to income. Working couples in the top 10% should not be provided tax-payer funded child care. Too often, single individuals are already expected to pick up the slack at work to accommodate working parents whose extra (in the top 10%) income goes toward overpaid private schools and underpaid nannies. It's not fair to expect those with lesser incomes to subsidize those in the top 10%.
5
@N Like Social Security, this program has to be for everyone to get enough support. Even then, we have problems. By withdrawing support for public schools though charter schools and vouchers, the rich are retreating from our existing commitment to support all children--public school.
2
We already manage to finance public education for K-12. Why is it impossible then to add on early childhood education?
1
Conceptually, I like the idea of universal free child care and agree with most of the author’s arguments.
I disagree that it is more important than free college education, I think they are equally important.
My concerns start with the costs of government spending. The out of control spending needs to be brought under control. The national credit card has been maxed out for quite a while with all of the binge spending and we need a budget counselor and credit counseling before we order another round.
I think a subtle concern exists and that is unlikely to be part of any real dialogue, which is that there will be (perception or reality) disproportionate use by some and little by others. The person who agrees that their taxes are well spent on day care for 1 or 2 children might object to someone “else” who has 3 or 4. And if you think small families will want to subsidize large ones that is probably not li
Another concern relates to the quality of almost everything the government provides. Expensive and poor quality And typically expensive. I wouldn’t support a direct federal government sponsored day care in general. Nor one sponsored by NYC which is even worse as a provider.
Any program like this should be tied to actual work and yes, women should not have to face the entirely real and difficult choice posed by the costs of day care and returning to work. I lived through that. It’s miserable.
1
There is no spending problem. The federal budget would be in surplus but for the Bush and Trump tax cuts.
As a function of GDP, federal spending has been 21% for literally decades. Every time tax revenues rise to within a whisker if that — because of rising incomes, mostly at the top — we get a tax cut instead of greater social equity. Funny how that works.
You are 100 percent correct. Childcare is a huge burden for families, and at present the govt does little to address the issue. It would definitely be better to provide child care for all instead of college. Couldn't agree more.
1
Why is it more important? Everyone eventually reached college age, but only a fraction of people choose to go and have a child without the resources to afford one. What makes those poor planners more important than everyone who wants a better education?
7
Is it “poor planning” to be a teacher? Calculate daycare cost as a function of not one but two teacher salaries, and explain to me how that’s a) poor planning or b) a reason not to have children.
While we’re there, is divorce poor planning? It frequently has the effect of reducing two incomes to one, and increasing other living expenses. Is your public policy solution, “tough cookies”?
1
CHILD CARE Is a great burden to many families. In most cases, parents are obligated to pay for infant and child care. My wife and I paid for child care for our two children. We were fortunate to find wonderful, nurturing caregivers for our children. Likewise they went to a very creative nursery school. But our daughter and her husband presented us with a beautiful grandson, who is the joy of our lives. We were semi-retired when he was born and live close by, so we provided infant care and child care for him up until he entered full day Kindergarten. Our daughter said that she wanted us to be a big part of his life. And she made good on her promise. About day care, both my wife and I worked full time in day centers funded by federal funds, with the state and city where we lived ran the program. So we saw day care in the public sector up close and personal. It prepared us especially well to be grandparents. But our family is in the minority. Universal day care is a necessity. So is a living wage. So is the Equal Rights movement. If just one more state signs up, it Equality for Females will become an amendment to the Constitution.
6
@John Smith
Somehow America became the greatest nation on earth without universal daycare, universal healthcare, a "living wage" and all the other socialist pipe dreams. Why do you think that is? Magic? Luck? Take a guess.
1
Free stuff always sounds good. I'll take all the benefits I can get as long as someone else is paying for it. But as Maggie Thatcher said: "Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money."
7
@J. Waddell
Whereas American Capitalism allows a very few to accumulate huge amounts while the vast majority earn just enough to keep alive from week to week.
BTW, Scandinavian Socialism does not run out of money. Those countries register budget surpluses more years than not. Budget surpluses. Perhaps Conservatives can name a small government country that generates budget surpluses.
15
Waddell, Thatcher’s quote was quite pithy, but, of course, neither the UK nor the US is currently in danger of running out of money.
This is particularly notable in the case of America’s wealthy, the richest 20% of whom own nearly 90% of US wealth.
To the extent that the US government is borrowing money, it is mostly to fund adventures abroad.
The invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, and our little ongoing interventions in Syria, Africa, the Philippines. Libya, et al., are cost centers, sure, but I wouldn’t call them “socialist.”
Oddly, the biggest “socialist” part of the government, Social Security, funds itself. Funny, that. I wonder if Thatcher knows?
Interestingly, as the country has grown wealthier, the claims that “we can’t afford socialism!” have grown.
Greed begets greed, it seems, and monetary gluttons are never sated.
Free (or almost free) public university tuition, something I can remember? Gone. Decent public infrastructure? Gone. An America that dreamed, that made it to the moon, that built massive dams, roads, airports, railroads, and looked at the world asking “why not? Instead of “why?” Gone.
Can’t afford it! We replaced our can do attitude with miserly can’t afford it excuses.
But another 11 billion dollar aircraft carrier that wouldn’t last 10 minutes in a fight with China? No problem. Border wall? Sure! Money for prisons? Open the tap!
Boy, glad we avoided any more socialism.
2
@J. Waddell A particular obtuse comment for a programmed aimed at allowing more mothers to work and hence increasing economic activity.
2
Sadly, with all of the debt we now have “for all” has been away to the rich, but we could begin the program for people earning less than $30,000 a year. The program must think beyond baby and should include 2 healthy meals a day, an exercise program and homework station for children up to age 16 - all year round. Such a program would go a long way to lift many individuals from lives of crime and poverty.
3
@SC
It might be easier to have everyone just earn more. Only Rich Conservatives would complain about that.
1
Daycares/preschools also often struggle, particularly in rural communities. As a member of the board of a local rural daycare (501c3), I see how we have to charge prices according to our local median income, which is low, and still provide quality care, trained staff, etc. We are often in the red, and depend on whether we'll receive enough funds, yearly contributions (not predictable) to continue.
2
@David
Government-run, universal daycare will result in exactly the same kinds of disparities as universal public education, which the "progressives" have dealt with so spectacularly, except they haven't. They will never accept the reality that some people are smarter and more ambitious than others; that individuals must live with their choices, including their bad choices; that when those bad choices are rewarded and subsidized, there is no incentive to change, to improve oneself.
In the interest of an honest conversation, who is going to pay for it all? I don't really want to pay for others' childcare. I am not a parent, don't want to be one, but don't begrudge others the right to have children. But they need to pay to support their own children. I'm guessing that free childcare is paid for by all of us? That's objectionable.
10
@Erica
Hi Erica,
I'm also not a parent, but I believe that the cost of living in a civilized society is making provision for the generations that will come after.
My late father who retired to Florida in 1986 in part because there was no state income tax to take from his social security and pension, decided that he wouldn't object to a small state income tax, provided it went solely to the public school system.
Taxes: The cost of civilization.
3
@Erica interesting perspective. When these children reach the workforce, they will be paying into social security and Medicare of which you are beneficiary. This is true whether your children paid into it or not. So, should we reduce your benefit because you did not have children who contributed? I really don’t understand the “I don’t have children therefore I should not pay for anything child related.” position. Are you paying state and local taxes? These go to schools, libraries, roads, cultural organizations, do you not benefit? You went to college, my taxes probably supported that in some way. I just don’t get it.
7
@Erica
I have a bizarre idea -- why not let private individuals make social contracts with other private individuals to care for their children during the day? The answer: "progressives" object to the principle that we human beings are free to make our own choices. For them, the solution to every problem is the heavy hand of government intruding into the private lives of its citizens.
2
Thank you so much for elevating this conversation! I think it would have been even more helpful to include cities’ costs too. In Seattle we spent $20,000 per year for a toddler, and that school was $700 less per month than the most expensive one! In Atlanta we spend approximately $14,000 a year for pre-school. And again, we’re not paying top dollar. Now that we have two, we’re looking at about $30,000! Just wanted to add these numbers for perspective. It’s outrageous! Then again, when you do the math, childcare workers earn far less than others with the same level of education, so we are grateful and stretch even further each year to make sure they get a substantial bonus. I wholeheartedly support universal high quality childcare, but think Democrats need a well thought out plan to fund and organize this effort in order to effectively sell it.
4
Amen!
Talk about an issue that crosses all classes and economic barriers.
There is not a parent - no matter how much money they have - that doesn't worry about how/where there kids are doing when school is out.
6
to those wondering how europeans pay for these things, i've lived for 15 years in copenhagen and amsterdam--and its so much cheaper and easier to live here. i get everywhere i need to go on a bicycle. i am a freelancer and i pay 116 euros a month for full healthcare with a 385 euro annual deductible. this is possible because doctors don't graduate w mountains of debt, do not expect to drive ferraris, and do not require offices that look like a nasa space station. the american system is unaffordable because there is so much excess and so much waste.
It also works because there are structures in place in ensure lower inequality. if garbage men make a living wage and are respected--and CEOs do not make billions--then you can hve a system where some kids get cheap or free college and others get vocational training. this is politically not possible in the US.
finally, in denmark, maternity leave is generous and child care is highly subsidized. and college and healthcare cost little if anything. MAJOR problem with this that should never be overlooked: people then have children in order to get their 'money out of the system.' Kind of like if mortgage deductions are too generous you get housing bubbles. Beware unintended consequences.
15
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Start with your cities. When multiple municipalities have managed to make this work, and it is generally accepted as a public good that should be “universal”, then state government is the entity to address it.
5
Québec have a universal day care system that works not so bad. Of course we pay more taxes for it, but it cost around 9 can dollars per day for any parent. It is not mandatory, and child can go to formal public daycare centers or smaller family owned centers. The idea was to give access to quality services and better child socialisation in a country where natality rates where very low. Having no child it's hard for me to go in details, but while the system is not perfect people around me are quite satisfied. One of the effects was boosting the participation of women in the workplace. Hope someone more qualified than me can write about it.
19
Thank you for placing this problem at the top of the liberal wish list. Both my son and daughter struggle with obtaining dependable quality childcare. For them, it is not a matter of money---it is a matter of quality and dependability. Other Western industrialized nations have devoted considerable resources into developing quality child care systems. In this country we don't have a system---we have, for the most part, and unregulated mix of private options that offer no assurance that a child will receive a quality educational, social, and emotional experience on a daily basis. I am writing this as my husband and I prepare to fly to our son's home in another state to babysit after their most recent nanny decided on the spur of the moment to get married and return to school.
6
@Amanda Jones
Your family’s domestic problems are just that. Don’t expect tge rest of us to pay our hard earned dollars toward tge solution.
Your children made their optional lifestyle choices and need to figure it out. The rest of us are busy financing what we value. Parents get too many taxpayer funded perks as it is.
14
@Earthling. Nice. Your island must be a pleasant place to live. Good luck with that.
2
Free and universally available childcare should absolutely be a cornerstone of the progressive agenda. Indeed, it should be a litmus test for Democratic presidential hopefuls in 2020.
Its not entirely fair, however, to suggest that progressives have not taken up the question. As with so many such issues, this is one where Bernie Sanders was a voice in the wilderness well before his 2016 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Indeed in 2011 Senator Sanders sponsored legislation that would have financed childcare and early education for all children from six weeks old to Kindergarten.
This is why Sanders has my support in 2020. Unlike a good number of the candidates who will be running for the Democratic nomination Sanders progressive positions are not opportunistic. They are not calculated efforts to win over a leftward moving electorate. They are what he actually believes and has been fighting for over his entire career and what we can therefore expect him to actually fight for should he win the presidency. Just as importantly, they are part of a coherent and comprehensive democratic socialist vision of what a better society would look like.
Some other candidates will now claim to support Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, free college and perhaps also free universal pre-K and may even implement a watered down version of one or two of the above while otherwise pursuing a pro-Wall Street agenda. Bernie will fight for them all because he always has.
3
No government benefit is free. The question is who and how they are going to be paid for. And a cost benefit analysis must be used to triage them.
Why should be people who don't have kids or don't need childcare in order work pay for those who do?
21
@Blackmamba
Why should childless coupes pay? Because it helps meet an important social goal that benefits everyone who lives in the society. I don't feel the need for a huge military, but some people do, and I have to pay. My kids are out of school, but I pay taxes to support local public schools - children need education. I also don't need medicaid because I have enough money, but I pay to support the program. I don't need AFDC, but I pay, and happily, because I want to see less starving impoverished people in my country,
And so on...
103
@Blackmamba
Our children are the future of our country. If childcare costs were based on a sliding scale tied to parental income, many more lower income parents would be employed which would increase tax receipts and increase those persons' future social security benefits. Plus good quality daycare increases socialization and preschool readiness. Our taxes support parks, libraries, and public schools (to name a few of the services). If a person doesn't use those, do you think he/she shouldn't pay for them?
11
@Blackmamba Why should people who don't have kids pay for public schools? Why should younger people pay toward Social Security? Because we all live in the same society, and we all benefit, in ways obvious and not-so-obvious, if the people around us are healthy, educated, and able to work to their highest potential.
13
As old white male, I agree 100% with the need for a saner, kinder, more supportive American culture, but realize it will be a dream un-realized unless and until America stops electing white men, especially rich ones, to office. The more middle and working class people who ascend to power, the more the needs of middle and working class people will be represented. Anyone thinking a billionaire living with an entourage understands the day to day problems and needs of people like you should stay away from polls on election day......and just go to work. JUST SAY NO to corporate PAC based business leaders and pick people from the community who rely on small donations of your friends and neighbors. With Citizens United it is more difficult to compete, but if we start locally at the grass roots, the bartenders, retail clerks, drivers, office and warehouse workers and of neighborhoods can take power from the business lobby if they address the VERY REAL NEEDS of people like themselves. It takes will, sacrifice, commitment, but if we refuse to to support anyone with a net worth above $1 million things will change quickly - on the street where you live
27
While there will always be a need for quality day care...and the key word here is "quality", I would strongly advocate for extended parental leave because every child has at least one caregiver whose care they would prefere over any other. Given the choice, many parents would choose to stay with their young children until they are better equipped to go out into the world. I believe that this would greatly enhance attachment and bonding and lay the foundation for wellness for years to come. As a nation, we would be wise to support parents and children in this stage of family life.
13
@Gayle Holten I agree, and I'd add that a reduction in work hours should also be considered. The sixty hour work week plus the commute is not healthy. People don't even see the community around them, much less participate in civic matters. How about private industry dials back to 50 hrs/week, and state moves up to 40 hrs/week.
1
Considering all the tax breaks people get with their kids, the idea that now they want not only full day kindergarten, full day preschool, but also birth to preschool child care?
I'm sorry, I support Medicare for All, because of our greedy health care system. I support a living wag. I support Social Security benefits being tied, somewhat to a living wage. College is a choice, as is having kids.
This will truly make this country a nanny state. It will also certainly be met with scorn from those of us who do not have kids. I, as a taxpayer, already pay for schools, and I never had kids. As a single taxpayer, I already pay more than my fair share.
The idea that parents are too busy, or self absorbed, that they want to have kids, but not rear them, is sickening. At least, in Victorian times, they hired a live in nanny.
What kind of person are you going to get if they are raised by the state from birth to they become an adult? The parents might as well just give the baby to the state.
21
@Nick Metrowsky
Exactly. I’d rather care for people suffering involuntary misfortune, via Medicare for all, than further coddle those who voluntarily chose to produce offspring.
No one had a gun to their head and the expenses of child rearing can easily be researched and planned for before conception.
7
And who do you think will be working to pay into Social Security and Medicare when you need it if people do not have children and those children are not well cared for, educated, and grow up to be productive members of society? We are all interdependent upon one another, and we all pay for things that benefit us as a society that we do not directly use. This is the social contract.
10
@Erin
If you cannot afford to have kids, they you should not make society pay for them. If you cannot raise your kid, and turn the rearing over to the state, then you should not have a kid.
It is not a social contract for the state to become a parent. Having children is an option, and should only be born to people who can properly raise children.
This si why agencies like Planned Parenthood exist. They do not just offer abortions, but planning to see if you can afford to raise a child or properly take care if the child.
It is bad enough parents forced pubic schools to offer free pre-school. Now they want free day care. No, that si not a social contract, that is not doing a parent's job.
4
This is a key right in countries such as France and should also be in the US. It is also a major way to alleviate poverty and give all children a more equal chance in life. It will thus pay for itself many times over in increased earnings for both parents and children, as is the case in Europe.
16
I'm not sure where Kartha Pollitt thinks she's living - the days of free are rapidly going away - we have $21 trillion of debt - a $965 billion dollar deficit this year - over $100 trillion of unfunded government pension liability.
Mayor de Blasio is saying there isn't enough money to fix the subways or public housing - or the tunnels under the Hudson River - or providing shelter for the homeless-and you want free day care.
Free insurance, free day care, free education - I would love a country that provides all that - at the level you find here in America - it does''t exist.
I paid my way through school, I paid to send my children to daycare and I pay for my health insurance. I grew up in 2 bedroom apt. sharing a room with my brother. It took me 7 years to graduate from college because I was getting up at 3 in the morning to unload boxes out of a UPS trailer for 4 1/2 years.
I'm so tired of people's expectations for free - there are tens of millions of people in poverty in this country - millions of children go to bed hungry every night - let's take care of the neediest first. The very needy - the extreme poverty.
I believe in a progressive tax - but more importantly, I believe in controlling the expenses of the federal government - we would be aghast to know where our tax dollars are going.
The government spending out of control - it's got stop. No one cares about our deficits -you want to let our children bear the burden of that debt? Do you? No more free.
54
@JMS
What she is suggesting is not "free"--its prioritizing use of taxes for something that will pay back a lot more than corporate tax breaks, etc.
She is saying this is a problem that we can solve collectively, because our individuals struggles are only digging us into a deeper pit.
I'm so tired of people like you, who give a litany of their own hardships as a reason why we should not solve structural problems.
23
@JMS
As a married person who chose to not have children I agree with 100% of what you have written. And to add to your comment; No one ever mentions the interest we pay annually on the federal debt. At last count some $371B (that's BILLION) annually and forecast to grow to some $800 billion annually in the near future. And these people now want free day care?
2
@JMS
Deficits adding to the national debt are bad when Trump does it, and good when "progressives" do it. It's that simple. When the majority of Americans believes that "soaking the rich" will transform America into a socialist paradise, we'll be finished as a free nation. Fortunately we're not there. Yet.
1
Fantastic column. Student debt can be rough for some, but the federal government has programs that work well if used properly. I am living proof. My student debt is ridiculously high, but I manage fine. Daycare, in contrast, is quite problematic. There is no federal or state program in place for daycare and the providers are limited. We spent thousands on good individualized daycare because group options were poor.
Ms. Pollitt focuses on the effects for women for good reason, but this issue touches men heavily too. I had to take a lot of time off work when my children were young. In an unprogressive place like western Kansas, it is strange for a man to take time off work to take care of his kids. It can cost you your career. At that point, you have to take a forbearance on your student loan for lack of income, but banks generally don't offer forbearances for mortgages and car loans.
7
Just think that 136 new congresswomen really understand this problem with childcare. It's time we stop thinking about the past. I have an idea why not let these congresswomen come up with new programs to help with new parents left the burdens of working and a new child.
I'm sure in no time that both the children and the parents would be far less stressed, because let's face it children read what's going on in the family far much better then we give them credit for. Work and home life should both be productive and enjoyable. Now let's try and help out the blue-collar worker so that they might go off and build new bridges/roads and know that their families are safe and being educated too. I think most people what a great with me when I say we have lost faith and what America can achieve.
1
"then the kids are in school and they don’t need it anymore."
Actually, some degree of child care is needed until a child is nearly high school age. There is need for after-school care, care when a child is sick, and school holidays of all sorts including the long summer. Most parents are off only a small fraction of the time their kids have breaks or individual days off. The child being sick, in particular, can send parents (probably mothers) scrambling to find a place for their sick child, another adult to come and take care of him or end up calling in sick/taking a personal day herself.
17
Let's remind readers first of all that there is a child care tax credit of $2,000/child in the 2018 tax laws! Ms. Pollitt fails to include that in her cost calculations. Probably one thing that could be adjusted would be to make this turn into an "earned income credit" for people whose income is too low to use all the available credit.
The other suggestion is that because this is a widely dispersed problem, perhaps the local communties, businesses, and work force development folks should be the ones to tackle it and not the federal government. Businesses, in particular, should be providing flexibility and assistance for young families in their workforce. This constant elevating of every issue to the national level is unnecessary. Local solutions, local leadership, local involvement will lead to the best solutions with the least amount of bureaucrats oversight.
5
Local solutions often lead to wide national disparities. School funding is a case in point.
4
@Paul Overby
How about we bring down to the local level our food and drug oversight, too? And air traffic control when most of our neighborhoods don't even have a single landing strip? Lots of other places we don't need all those bureaucrats butting in; where local businesses can handle things so efficiently...and fairly.
@Mariajose Romero PhD Our country is a federal republic, not a national democracy. This reality seems to escape most people.
The Dems should run on universal daycare support per this article, Medicare for all, end all Middle East/Afghanistan wars and military actions immediately and the Green New Deal with a strong emphasis on infrastructure conversion and modernization - they should discuss little else. They win hands down.
5
Reliable daycare is the cornerstone of all families with parents who work successfully. If you don’t have dependable, safe and affordable daycare, you cannot be a reliable worker. I think this point was made very clear during the federal shutdown with many workers unable to show up for their non-paying job even if they wanted to.
The idea of daycare for all seems preposterous, but if you turn it into a business model: training people to care for young children and infants, hiring people to clean the buildings, hiring people to be administrators, it becomes an extension of the education system and a jobs creator. It allows parents to work in other jobs without fear of cost vs safety of their young children.
9
@Mary
You can plan and save up in advance for daycare costs, like any other large expenses. Don’t pick my pocket even more, to make life easier for those who failed to prepare.
6
I'm not sure about this, but I'd definitely put it ahead of free college tuition, which I suspect would help the colleges more than the students. This is better targeted.
2
@Mike Livingston
Same thing. Day care will be big business. Training, managers, teachers, locations, food supplies, marketing,
Targeting same population at a slightly later date.
2
Not a single mention of grandparents. Why? I've met several older couples in my neighborhood who have relocated temporarily or permanently to help with the daycare of a grandchild. Where are fathers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends - on both sides of the family? And what about daycare provided by churches that are on just about every corner and then some in most minority communities? The problem is the village, and not necessarily a Democratic one to try and solve through government means.
1
With people needing to work part-time well after retirement, we cannot assume a widespread availability grandparents who can afford to forego the extra income to care for their grandchildren and who have the energy, health and resources to do so.
8
@Mr. Slater Indeed the problem is the village, or in our country’s case, the quickly diminishing/lack of one. Family is wonderful, if willing to help out. Unfortunately, in our society, we have prioritized individual success over all else for so long, the village has broken down.
I had the great fortune of having a loving, recently retired mother who was thrilled to help with our childcare when she became a grandma. Unfortunately, when she herself got sick with a terminal illness, not only did we lose the best nanny in the world, I also had to scramble with the new task of caring for my very sick mother (she did not have a husband or partner who could spearhead managing her care), on top of managing a demanding job and two very young children. While fortunate enough to have a supportive and equal partner in my husband, there were simply not enough hours in the day to care for my mother, care for my children and perform my job optimally. Everything was sub-par, everyone suffered, and we are still burned out from the experience and trying to pick up the pieces of our lives that this situation devastated (ultimately, my dear mother passed away). Unfortunately for us, my mother was our village. When the village burned down, we were left to put out the fire ourselves, on top of all the other demands of life. In a country with sub-replacement level fertility rates, we as a country should be seeking ways to encourage people to have children, not punish them.
7
@Mr. Slater
Even in my relatively affluent area, many of my neighbors have moved here for jobs. My neighbors have moved from China, India, Texas, California, and the like, leaving extended families far away.
There is only one person on my block that has a parent that is in the area to help—and that grandma won’t walk the kids to the bus in the snow so the neighbors do it!
Luckily, all my neighbors are all amazing and we’ve been able to step in for each other when the grandparents can’t be there. I know this can’t happen everywhere and I am grateful for this global band of citizens every day.
Leaving extended families behind is the curse of being raised a highly-competitive capitalist system. It’s also probably why many of us have multiple children to make up for that feeling of loss.
3
Katha Pollitt's argument is timely, smart and correct--except for her clarion call at the end, "Let's be bold."
Unfortunately, Americans hear the words "universal affordable high-quality child care" and rather than associate it with a better situation for parents and working women, or a better economy, or a better and happier society, they see higher taxes going for other people's children. We're jp against the problem of Americans measuring everything in political life by a narrow notion of "individual freedom" resting on the principle of "each man out for himself." Strangely, as Ms. Pollitt points out, even many of those who need or want child care the most unconsciously think this way.
As we saw with the fight over Obamacare, because the American idea of freedom is so narrow and individualistic, it's a truly daunting task to persuade them to fund any program whatsoever that's aimed at the social good.
I propose progressives be strategic: Choose slyness instead of boldness. We are best able to achieve universal affordable high-quality child care if we avoid the words entirely. We should push Congress to pass legislation raising the cap on tax deductions for child care to 90 percent of the average cost of childcare in each state and 100 percent for people below the poverty level. Conservatives will holler, but what else is new?
10
I would rather us look at the even bigger picture - that the evolution of our economy has favored the 1 percent, and higher-paying jobs are nowhere to be seen. In American capitalism, people are workers and nothing else. If you have kids, you have to deny the needs of your family to work and to get ahead.
Nope. We decided to opt out of corporate capitalism, tighten our belts, and have mom at home. Dad works two jobs that allow flexibility to be with the kids as much as possible. We don’t have a lot, but we have enough. We never go hungry. But most of all, no corporation controls our entire lives. We have that control, and that’s worth more than any paycheck.
3
@Michelle
That parents should raise their own children is not a useful Democratic talking point, when "free" can be deployed.
Having said that, once we've stabilized the growth of the national debt, begun rebuilding infrastructure, tackled homelessness (or found a way to reduce the diseases CA is now experiencing, for example, and the public defecation), got a handle on student debt to help people launch, begun building enough housing...ok, then maybe we look at another benefit.
2
@Michelle
But what about the women who want to be somebody? Who have talents that they'd like to exploit? Who want their female children to grow up knowing that the world is open to them?
This is about the women who are mothers but who know that's not all their life should be about.
1
@Rea Tarr - I am somebody.
2
Why should two parents have to work to be able to have children? In the affluent and liberal neighborhoods I work in moms mostly don't work. How about we pay people enough so no one is forced to give up their kids to a stranger for most of the waking hours?
4
@somsai The problem with this is that with no-fault divorce, the breadwinning parent can walk away with their earning capacity, while the SAHP gets only short term maintenance and will be sending out resumes even if there are several small children still in the house. Until the law supports SAHM's, it's become a risky proposition. I think this is very sad, because mom care is not the same thing as day care, but our culture considers the latter to always be an effective substitute.
6
@somsai
Do you really know how many of those women would like to go to work if they could?
ok, but we need the government not involved other than to regulate the costs. Every time the government mandates something the cost of said mandate becomes extremely expensive because corporations corner the market.
why do progressives not talk about housing and transportation as starting points for change. We need changes to our archaic zoning (regulatory capture by affluent communities) and lack of transportation by those who can't afford to sit in traffic for 2 hours a day.
every citizen deserves affordable housing and transportation and medical care. This will provide options for jobs and mobility of labor. Better mental health and so much more. The fact that housing has become a profit center for the more affluent or lucky is a sin.
Housing... a govt. backed loan, college.. a govt. backed loan.. health care... a mandated coverage... look at the costs associated and who is profiting...
instead we get an economically suspect $15 minimum wage that doesn't help anyone but is politically aggressive and helps get votes. Look at the cost of your hamburger, the cost of your groceries... minimum wage mandates force prices to rise, the business owners are not going take the hit. the lower class end up paying more for everything.. including rent.
who is profiting??
make housing and transportation more affordable at all levels. That is the start!
2
Yes. Child care. Yes.
But first universally available and affordable family planning and contraception. All children should be wanted children.
The families that have the most trouble are those who have children they didn't plan to have; that they weren't prepared for; that their lives can't absorb. Unplanned and unwanted kids are at greater risk of neglect and/or abuse: they often suffer badly
They often end up educationally dysfunctional, mentally, ill, addicted, and sometimes criminal.
We need to begin at the beginning of families: not try to fix it later.
Universally required, serious junior high level courses in human
health, family economics, and family planning would help even more.
10
I keep reading about all these social programs (free day care, free college, free medical, etc, etc) in some of the more progressive European countries. Wonderful for sure but never seem to actually see, on paper, in black and white, right in front of me, exactly how the average citizen of these countries is footing the bill for all this. Nothing is ever "free" in life...
12
The numbers do not seem to add up.
The author claims colleges cost less than day care, in NY about 7k per year. Then why are so many people supposedly hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from school ?
It is more likely that those with a vested interest in seeing the increase in “day car for all” are fudging their numbers, or those who want school debt forgiven are fudging.
Or both.
6
Room and board in most state colleges costs $15k per year. In NY it room and board costs more than the annual tuition. When people borrow to cover room and board and tuition it is almost impossible to pay that back as the interest compounds for years while you are attending university. It’s the interest that drowns our young.
3
Providing working mothers with financial assistance from the federal government to defray most of the cost of competent daycare for babies and toddlers is a great idea. Katha Pollitt should be congratulated for suggesting this as plank to the platform of any Democratic candidate.
Women who are Republicans and want to return to the workforce would support this simple notion. Grandparents, regardless of political affiliation, would support Day Care for All, since the grandparents often help their daughters pay for good daycare.
The idea suggested by Ms. Pollitt would not be cheap, but the increase in national productivity by putting young women back to work outside the home would probably offset much of the federal cost of this budget line item.
3
For women who stay home to raise children - whether because a low income salary couldn't cover daycare costs or because a high-earning husband made it possible to enjoy being an at-home mother - it is an eye opener to realize how much depends on having an earning history.
Getting credit when you need it is tougher when you haven't been working, even if you go back to work you need a salary history. Unemployment benefits in the unexpected loss of a job depend on having qualified quarters of earning history, perhaps longer than the job stint itself. Social Security (if it continues to exist) is based on what you paid into the system - if less or nothing, your retirement checks will be less or nothing. If a marriage ends, divorced or widowed retirement benefits based on the husband's record may not be there at all or may be very minimal. Medicare (if it continues to exist) is also tied into one's Social Security file, requiring 40 quarters of qualifying earnings to enroll, and the higher costs for not qualifying are staggering - one reason why "medicare for all" is, at this moment, nothing but a teaser slogan that needs a lot of policy work. Many women are not aware of considerations like these in the work vs. childcare day to day decisions, but when old age hits stay at home mothers will be hit hard.
11
This is essential.
As you point out, before most mothers worked, the idea of day care might have seemed SOCIALISTIC--oh, the horror! But now most women at every income level work and day care is no longer a frill.
Having traveled through Scandinavia, I can attest children are cared for in a way which is far superior to what we do here. We are in the dark ages of the 1950's with a commercial day care system which is inferior in quality and quantity to what the Scandinavians have.
The consequences of this are unseen and unmeasurable in many ways: How many parents have decided to not have children based on the dollars and cents calculations?
Everyone from racists to Ivory Tower sociologists have pointed to the phenomenon that the higher the educational level and professional status of American parents, the fewer children they tend to have. (Of course, for the racist, this is often couched in terms of the lower strata "just staying home and breeding," a vile perspective.)
The fact is, there are plenty of parents who would have more children if only our society made economic and financial provision for them. We may face the problem already seen in Japan--an aging population with too few young to care for them.
We were more or less far sighted in our decision to be sure the elderly did not drag down productive society when we chose Social Security and Medicare.
Now we might turn our attention to an investment in the future--by investing in affordable, high quality child care.
5
No government program can be a substitute for a parent in the home - to tend to babies and little ones, to be there when they get off the school bus, to make sure they're eating right and not getting up to mischief, etc. A program like this would create a daycare industry, much like the nursing home industry, underwritten by federal money (and an attendant bureaucracy). Kids need a parent - in the home. A more efficient use of funds might be to give money directly to individuals (as opposed to a daycare center) in the form of a basic income. Families could then decide how best to use it, maybe by allowing one parent to remain home. Two basic incomes (one for each parent) plus one earned income might allow parents to spend more time raising their own children rather than farming the job out to a daycare. It could help restore a stronger sense of rootedness to home and neighborhood by allowing kids and a parent to be actually present there. Basic income is pro-child, pro-family, pro-neighborhood.
4
@Mark I agree, but our legal system and social security system do not protect SAHM's. With no-fault divorce, a husband can discard his wife, sending her into the workforce with little earning capacity, paying maintenance only for a short time. Our legal system does not respect SAHM's.
3
@Mark
Who pays the taxes to give every set of parents their mommy-daddy salaries, then?
A "more efficient use of funds" usually needs funds to work well.
I lost my first born to adoption. As a junior nurse in 1967, I could pay for an apartment, food and used VW bug, though the cost of childcare was beyond what I could do for my son. The horror of surrendering one's own child is a horror too great To surrender, because a mother can't work and provide child care is a mysogynic torture.
3
Great idea. A few questions:
Who will pay for it? Everyone? Parents and prospective parents only? Will poor people be exempt?
How will it be funded? Another payroll deduction? Will poor people be exempt?
Who will choose the "caregivers"? Will they have to be "certified"? By whom? And by whose standards? How much will this certification cost? Who will pay for that? How?
Will childcare be mandatory, like public-school attendance? If the toddlers are truant, will their parents be questioned by a new agency consisting of social workers with the power to remove the children from the home and place them in foster care?
How will the toddlers arrive at daycare? Public transportation? Who will pay for that? Will poor people be exempt?
Who will provide the toddlers' meals? Which agency will regulate the meals' contents? Who will decide what is "nutritious"? What will the penalties be for serving "unhealthy" meals? Who will pay for them? Will poor people be exempt?
Etc.
10
@Ed L.
To find your answers, check the countries that have already have successful childcare programs up and running.
@Rea Tarr
It's instructive and revealing that you cannot answer any of my questions. American "progressive" politicians who attempt to foist these new social programs onto taxpayers will not be able to evade the questions as you just did. Americans have a right to know how their taxes are being spent and how new social-welfare schemes are going to be funded and regulated. It's not for Sweden or Denmark to decide.
2
@Ed L.
There are no plans as yet for how our system would work. No answers to questions not yet formally asked. That you keep harping on those "poor people" possibly demanding to be exempt is worrisome, though.
1
There is no such thing as “free” childcare unless you plan on paying the providers nothing. Pointing out the obvious, this new entitlement will be payed for by taxpayers. If anything, the policy should make it easier for a parent to stay home and raise their children.
8
My son is 19 years old now but when he was in day we paid $16,000/ month including summers and vacations )to keep our place) in the suburbs of NY. When our daughter was born the day care bill shot to $25,000 for both of them.
To make it worth it you must really want to keep your job or earn more than $80,000 per year. Depended Care deduction of $5000 was helpful but far to little to meaningfully help.
The mothers I knew who stayed home usually had jobs of $40-$60k. They didn’t think it was worth it to keep their jobs. When they tried to get back into the job market 5,10,15 years later they realized they had no skills, no relationships and no experience that is valued today - and now they are over 50 - they can’t even get interviews
The costs of day care hurts women for their entire careers.
162
@Deirdre
Absent from the discussion, always and forever, is the volition of the parents and prospective parents. If they cannot afford children, why are they having them? Why should the people who have made good choices in life subsidize those who have made -- and continue to make -- bad choices? Why would we wish to reward bad behavior?
9
@Ed L.
The point is that for many families, child care is prohibitively expensive. Having a child is not "bad behavior" or a "bad choice" for working parents. It's a natural one, which the vast majority of humanity has always engaged in. And try not to pat yourself on the back for all your "good choices" either. I suspect there's some luck involved in both equations. I say this as someone who is childless by choice, for the record.
26
@Ed L. This argument is raised often - if you can not afford children, don’t have them. Ok. Then what becomes of our society? We already have sub-replacement level fertility rates. As our population ages, without upcoming generations to take the reins, what happens? Who cares for all the aging, childless citizens? Are there enough nurses? Doctors? Workers in general to move the engine of society & the economy forward? How expensive does life become for all the aging, childless citizens who were responsible enough to not have children they could not afford? I am all for people choosing to not have children. But make no mistake, even the childless need children to be raised in a healthy and functioning society - they are their future caretakers too (just more scarce, more in-demand and therefore, more expensive). This did not work out well in Japan, I imagine it won’t bode well for the USA if we continue to disincentivize people to have children, and brand it as a life choice only the wealthy deserve.
49
The “progressive to-do list” in America is long, and needs to include not only accessible, affordable quality day care but also the freedom to decide not to return to work before one is ready because there is no guarantee of paid paternity leave.
In order for human liberation to be realized all partners in raising a child need access to paid family leave, single parents need the benefits of child rearing assistance, and the pressure to return to work before parent and or child are ready to separate needs to be disincentivized.
3
Why have kids if you can't take care of them. It takes a village to raise a child, not a government bureaucracy. Why not just give the kids numbers instead of names, makes them easier to track.
17
@Chris So basically what your saying is that only wealthy people should have children. Conservatives don’t want to provide health care, I.e., family planning and women’s health initiatives, but then expect families and single parents to fend for themselves when it comes to childcare. We need to work together to raise our children. Quality affordable daycare and good public education are essential to a healthy society.
9
@Jeanne
No. People of moderate means can plan and save, as for any big-ticket expense.
2
@Jeanne
No, I didn't say wealthy people should only have children. I am unsure how inferred that from my post.
We seem to be eager to absolve ourselves of our duties and our obligations when we deal with anything besides our own well being.
Would you rather have a stranger raise your child then take on that responsibility yourself? If life requires sacrifices, which all our parents did, would you not sacrifice some of your own personal goals to raise your child? I did. My wife did. My parents did. I would gladly do it over and over again!
I guess I missed the latest memo from the Progressives. Equality for all, Social Justice, Honest pay for honest work, Sign me up!!!!
But I honestly feel that we are using the Progressive label as a way to inflate our selfish tendencies and not take on the responsibilities of "adults".
Do we need to provide these for others in dire circumstances, of course. But lets be real about how much we are willing to sacrifice for the "greater good"
2
"The high cost of child care doesn’t even have the silver lining of providing decent jobs for child care workers, who are so poorly paid they may be eligible for food stamps." That's spot on. And contributing to poverty wages are the proliferation of for-profit (rather than non-profit) child care centers that find new and different ways to keep staff wages low (e.g., paying only hourly wages [sometimes as low as $7/hr], closing the center on federal holidays but not paying employees, forcing staff to leave early when "the numbers drop," paying hourly staff for precisely 75 hours a pay period instead of the number of hours that were actually clocked, paying staff for only part of mandatory staff meetings, etc.). These centers don't have union workers and the mostly female employees are often so dependent on their wages that they fear speaking up (and indeed, voicing concerns is an excellent way of being dismissed after directors go looking reasons to justify an unjustifiable firing). If as a society we value good child care and education for young children, child care workers and early childhood educators MUST be paid a living wage.
17
I guess that getting married before you have children and staying married after you have them isn't such a bad idea, huh? Live very conservatively on one income (yes, it's very difficult, but in most cases not impossible). Or, both spouses can work jobs with different shifts. Problem solved. Oh, but the left has done it's best for the last fifty years to destroy marriage, and all shame has been taken out of having children out of wedlock. Shame may not feel good, but it serves enforce societal norms that are good for the society.
Instead, the left is proving that it literally wants a nanny state and the overbearing taxes that go along with it. It is my money, not the governments. Take some personal responsibility.
25
@Ron Wilson
Correct, Ron.
It’s not about income inequality.
It’s about discipline inequality.
11
@Ron Wilson
Way to miss the entire point of the article Ron. Even living conservatively on TWO incomes childcare is an extraordinary cost for today’s families. Your reference point is 50 years out of date, and it shows.
7
@Jed
Funny but millions and millions of us support households on one moderate income. It can be done with discipline and reasonable expectations of lifestyle & consumption.
6
A question or perhaps a challenge for Ms. Pollitt and to other liberals: Is it possible for you to "look both inside and out side of the box" to offer alternative ways to provide more viable solutions to some social issues rather than seeking to have others pay for services we do not need?
Ms. Pollitt compares the cost of child care to the cost of college and indicates (without any data) how providing free child care would create jobs, yet fails to see an alternative solution between the needs of parents seeking cost effective child care and students and their parents seeking affordable college tuition.
One solution might be for higher education institutions to begin offering degree programs such as 5 or 6 year terms at discounted rate if a student elects to work for a licensed day care if their field of study is related to teaching, social work, nursing etc., so that qualifying parents needing day care can reduce these costs.
2
@MDCooks8
1. Jobs in day care -- teachers, administrators -- will be created. (This was obvious.)
2. When might a student attend a class or two when she or he is spending the workday as a daycare employee?
@MDCooks8
A question of Conservatives: What is the Conservative solution? Let the situation continue as it is now? Do nothing like the GOP Congress has for the last 8 years? Apparently so. Your solution is the same as always, have for-profit institutions, who have zero interest in doing anything to help society, suddenly have a conscience and provide services. The same old imaginary nonsense that never happens unless society (government) forces them to do so. Some examples are worker safety, decent wages, decent treatment of employees, which would have never happened if companies decided such things. "Let the market decide"... such delusional fantasies...
1
Maybe, but considering the current state of our profoundly over populated world perhaps fewer incentives to maintain the status quo - especially amongst us affluent high consuming first worlders - may not be such a terrible thing.
8
@Tim
Yes, exactly. Thank you.
Who’s proving all of this new day care? Women of color?
Include considerations that day care workers are underpaid and lower socioeconomic status than those who are working.
There’s a bigger issue in redistributing labor than just between genders. Address it.
8
@Eve
Yes, exactly. Who will be providing all this daycare? Undocumented migrants perhaps.
1
Funny--i thought this article would be satire. Given what the progressives advertise shouldn't it be day care for adults?
Security for those who just don't want to work.
14
When I worked in Europe as a consultant, I asked a French consultant who was working with me how they could afford free post maternity leave, and free child care. He responded by asking me how we as a society could afford so much juvenile crime.
13
@jan winters
How can we afford crime.......because we profit from it. All our privatized prisons are money makers. Note lease these are educated women discussing careers, not young property mothers who did not plan a pregnancy.
1
@katesisco
Criminals usually profit as well...
1
Government assistance, in the form of tax credits would be a good short term solution to help parents today with the high cost of child care.
The longer term solution is to make sure every job pays enough to support a family, that way, one of the parents can afford to stay home while he children are young. I think everyone would agree it is better when a Father or Mother cares for their children rather than lowly paid care workers.
As workers are replaced by machines and computers we are going to need fewer and fewer workers. Being able to spend more time with one's children is supposed to be a benefit of productivity improvement; but, that will only happen if we change the rules of the game so that all those gains don't go to just the top 1% of the American people.
5
I would not agree. Childhood education teachers are often highly trained and can be substantially better equipped to teach young children according to the most up to date science than parents that have not been similarly trained. Low pay does not equate to low skill. Rather the low pay is a factor of needing high teacher to child ratios and still maintaining at an attempt at affordable care. There is clear data showing education begins in these critical years and with loss of quality childhood education prior to entering school years creates life long education gaps
6
@Ronny
Not every job needs to support a family. Entry level jobs in which is just learning work is for young people who don’t have families and need to raise the value of their labor first.
People who can’t raise the value of their labor above that can’t afford a nuclear family of their own and shouldn’t make one.
3
@KBronson
That is not true. The majority of minimum wage jobs are held by working parents.
Thirty years ago there was a joke about the end of work when their would only be one giant machine that produced everything the people need or want, that machine would be guarded by one man to watch over the machine and one dog to bite the man if he should ever try to touch the machine. The Dog was the highest paid of the two.
We need to plan for the day when there will be no jobs, minimum wage or otherwise.
2
Please do not think of it as day care. Think of it as early childhood education. And involve the parents in the process so they can do a better job in the hours they have with their children. As education, it is demonstrable that the costs will come back to society many times over in reduced safety net costs, lower school costs for special ed and other remediation, more tax revenue, and reduced costs of the legal system and incarceration. You doubt that it can be that effective? See my website the-education-solution.com for the data and the assumptions on which they are based.
28
Fathers need to be held accountable first.
Before we set up a enormous government run plan for childcare we should first work towards insuring that every single father out there pays for his/her child's upbringing. I don't care if a mom wants to be a single mother, its a free country, but I do care if she isn't getting financial support from the father and advocates like Pollit, want taxpayers, AKA me, to help pay to raise someone elses kid. My wife and I have our own kids we pay a lot to raise. It's like the free lunch program which has expanded over the decades enormously. Most kids stay on it their entire time through school. If you can't even feed your kids breakfast, lunch and dinner, then why would you even dare consider even having a 2nd child. We are in the 21st century people. We have many options and can plan when to have children.
33
Fatherhood isn't and should not be a punishment.
A bit late to direct anger at raising someone's else's kid as that is exactly what divorce does. The divorced children are basically abandoned and the college education responsibility falls apart and the child's stress level goes thru the roof.
Believe it or not religion used to encourage families to delay divorce until the children were raised and the social workers spewed out plethoras of studies claiming the anger inside the family was worse than the results of separation. Hidden in all this was the huge boost to the GDP that divorce created coincidentally at the same time businesses offshore their factories eliminating jobs.
Theres a book that needs to be written.
@A P Isn't this the nub? "pay to raise someone elses kid."
And our Medicare taxes pay to care for someone else's parents.
This is always the cant: I am the ant and I planned ahead and that grasshopper just played all day and now wants me to help him.
Until this mindset changes Scandinavia will outstrip us in every way and despite the small size of those countries they will outperform us.
3
@A P
We need a national, mandatory DNA database of all males so paternity for every child is established at birth, and the sire held financially accountable. (Existing males: You don’t get HD diploma, passport, drivers license, student aid, professional license etc without providing a sample. New males sampled at birth.)
Once all fathers are permanently on the hook, I imagine condom use and support for abortion rights would skyrocket.
3
This shouldn't be a "one from column A and one from column B" situation as to:
Paid parental leave;
Subsidized child care;
Universal health care;
Quality free public education through college;
Paid sick leave and vacations; and
A living wage.
It is all of the above (and some more I didn't think of in the minute it took to write this).
6
High quality day care for young working families is as important as high quality day care for the elderly dying Americans. "High quality" is an abuse of language our president uses often. Today, cheap informal child care is an abuse and though countries peoples' have always relied on the free day care provided by their older generations, that doesn't work good here and now. Social media and TV have put the kibosh on good child and elder care in America. Sexism. misogyny and anger are rife among us today, no matter our ages or sexes. Fathers' responsibilites aren't ephemeral, but the scale of balances is weighted unjustly against child-bearing women, and child-care people. Neglect is the end-product of lack of good child and elder people care.
2
There already is a large segment of society that relies on government for housing, feeding, medical care, schooling, heating, transportation and cell phones. Adding daycare to that mix will complete total dependence on the government.
You can’t provide childcare to productive members of society without a whole bunch freeloading who game the system. Just look at Adult day care paid by Medicaid.
9
@Realist
Yeah, we just can't. And just because other industrialized countries do it, and have better outcomes than the US is many areas of their societies is no reason to even try.
It is never too late to give up. Just ask any Conservative.
2
@Realist Your argument really needs to be supported by data showing the ratio of freeloaders to those who use social services to get on their feet or stay employed in jobs that don't pay enough to allow them a decent place to live, an adequately nutritional diet, medical care, and the means to get to work. I'm puzzled by your inclusion of schooling. Now public schools, which Jefferson deemed critical to the maintenance of the republic, should be private, completing the marginalization of all but those whose wealth flows from accidents of birth?
1
@Realist
It's called socialism. Perhaps we prefer to raise our prison population covertly?
In many European nations, where one can go to university free of tuition and there are national health care systems, parents get up to 3 years paid maternity leave and public pre-school care starts at 6 months.
4
@Cornflower Rhys
But the standard of living in Europe is generally lower than it is here.
Fewer cars per family.
Smaller homes.
More expensive everything.
Less money allocated to research and development, a big reason why the US is where medical devices, pharma, electronics, entertainment and many other things are largely invented
4
@G
The standard of living for whom? The median do way better than the American median. You point to less cars and smaller homes. I see less debt and more economic security. Less stress about affording child care, healthcare, education and retirement, and 4 week paid vacation each year by law. More expensive everything, more social and economic security. And your economic analysis is equally flawed. BTW, I have lived in Europe, in several countries. I saw less homeless in the years I was there than I can see in a day in the USA, even here in Denver. Maybe the US is better if we just do not count the people our society throws away,
If you are willing to pay very high taxes as they do in Scandinavia you can get many benefits including universal healthcare and paid maternity leave.
2
Great article. The need for paid family day care would present an opportunity for a greatly enlarged workforce and enable many men and women to be truly productive members of society. Socialism? Go for it like many European countries.
7
A study by McKinsey found that within as few as 10 years, up to 40% of jobs will be replaced by automation. Presumably, most of the jobs list will be at the lower end of the pay scale as a machine becomes substantially cheaper than a $15/hr minimum wage. Then there won’t be a need for those who cannot themselves afford “quality daycare.”
3
If the progressive dream ever becomes reality, eventually they will take every last penny from the working class since they want everyone will rely on the government, which in turn will lower the standard of living and limit your freedom of choice...
Hopefully I will be ashes by the time occurs, however I fear that the likes of AOC will realize that the progressive Green scheme does not add up and will look to impose higher taxes on retirement accounts...
Equality in their eyes is to lower the standard of living of the middle-class since poverty is the only true equalizer....
16
Interesting theory, but do have any real facts to back it up? European countries have all these items that progressives are pushing for and higher taxes on the wealthy, but their GDP per person and annual growth is about the same as ours. The major difference appears in the happiness index - residents there have much less anxiety, as well as much less crime, and much less incarcerated.
28
@jan winters
Until the past year or so, hasn't there wage stagnation, impacting the US worker's purchasing power?
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
Comparing the annual growth of countries with much smaller populations than the US is meaningless because percentage wise, a higher percentage increase in GDP of a smaller population / economy (or any number) is easy to achieve than a smaller percentage increase of a larger economy. So the economic output to achieve a 2 % increase in Denmark is not equivalent to the economic output needed to reach a 2% increase in GDP in the US.
I would have much less anxiety as well living in a less populated country than the US, for may reasons...
1
@jan winters
Yes, but Conservatives believe life in Denmark is exactly the same as the life in Cuba for every single person.
2
The benefits of free child care are enormous.
Just think. If children learned at a young age how to share, get along and have early socialization skills, our children could turn into caring, empathetic adults as opposed to a president who only thinks about his own interests. (I am guessing he never went to daycare.)
2
We won't have families with children at all if we make that too hard. We see that in Japan already.
Child care is not only about individual women, it is about a healthy society. A healthy society has children. It also has happy mothers with good lives.
As we squeeze the lives of mothers, we squeeze out the children from our society too.
224
@Mark Thomason
Those European countries that are cited as having free childcare all have birth rates far below that of the United States. There is no evidence that it creates sustainable birth rates. It may even be that by focusing people towards the state more and the family less causes people to be less interested in making any sacrifices for family.
Is the lower birth rate ( and national defense dependency) why they can afford it?
4
"Those European countries that are cited as having free childcare all have birth rates far below that of the United States. "
This is not true. The US birth rate is 1.72 babies/woman. In Sweden, it's 1.85, Norway, 1.72, France, 1.96, and Finland 1.65.
25
With the threat of global warming and the fact that resources are finite, a declining birth rate is a positive for the US and the world.
7
Let's make it care for dependents of all ages (old, young, and disabled). A comprehensive safety net should ensure all Americans have the following necessities of life in our modern world:
A basic income for food, clothes, and other staples
Education
Dependent care
Healthcare
Housing and utilities
Transportation
Internet and wireless access
I know that's a lot and the conservatives will start to rage about the cost. I won't underestimate either the cost or the challenge of trying to ensure all Americans have this complete set of basics. And I recognize that it may not be possible. But we should set a goal to come as close as possible to providing that comprehensive safety net as we can come. Our stability as a nation likely depends on it as the growing financial insecurity so many Americans face is likely to result in civil unrest if we don't address the problem effectively.
47
@617to416
We put a man on the moon. Surely the richest nation in the world can figure out how to provide economic security for every American. FDR proposed that in his "Second Bill of Rights" in the 1940's and the wealthy have fought against that idea ever since.
12
Then what is the point of hard work or achievement or success or accomplishments? Why suffer the pressures of the SAT and college application process, assume large amounts of debt, begin your career with chasing employment then having to work 70 hour weeks to succeed if your high school classmate who barely graduated doesn’t suffer for their choices and actions? I did well in high school, scored high on the ASVAB and enlisted on my 18th birthday. Should I have the same options, lifestyle or wealth as a classmate who went to Columbia? Of course not. We’re aren’t communists (yet).
9
@From Where I Sit
I did well in school, had high SAT scores, went to an elite university, and worked very hard to become a partner and SVP in a large global firm. I guess I never once felt that was "suffering." And while the money is nice, it wasn't money that motivated me. It was the feeling of achievement itself and the satisfaction in my good work that drove me on. If I felt I was "suffering" I think I would have taken a bullet to my head. Life shouldn't be misery. Success has no value if achieving it means such unhappiness.
Underlying your comment is an American attitude I admit is common but that I find peculiar. It's this idea that people are generally lazy freeloaders who need the threat of punishment hanging over their heads to get out of bed in the morning. My experience, honestly, is quite the opposite. Give a person a chance to succeed and they gladly run an extra mile to do it. And I honestly don't see why on earth I would stop trying to achieve and be successful just because some other person got a basic living for free.
23
"Note the unconscious sexism embedded in that calculation: child care costs shouldn’t be weighed against only the mother’s earnings."
I am getting so tired of this. Men and women are not the same. Child rearing is a joint endeavor and should not be attempted by single mothers except in cases of necessity, e.g., abandonment by the father. And yes, in most cases, the mother will take the time to raise small children as it is her evolutionary role and she is best suited to it.
If you want to call me sexist for mentioning some facts about mammals, fine, I no longer care.
5
@Josh Hill I agree. Parenting should have two committed parents. While single parent families (mothly mothers) will always exist due to death, desertion or divoce), to choose single motherhood is very risky for both the child and the mother.
7
@Josh Hill: Well, hunting for your food with a bow and arrows and defending your cave against other mammals would get you real tired, won’t it?
2
Social conservatives have typically opposed government-funded child care. They describe it as an overpriced boondoggle, another huge government bureaucracy, anti-family, a way of imposing liberal values on helpless children.
Many young children are abused within the family home. Unobserved by anyone who cares, they daily suffer injuries that will never heal. Extreme social isolation, drug addiction, a quality of life hardly worth the effort is the paltry reward for the victims of this early abuse who somehow survive. So low cost daycare isn't only good for parents and single mothers - for some young children it's a life saver.
47
@Leigh
Excellent point -- the best thing we could do for some of these children is get them out of the home so we could attempt to break the cycle of poverty and abuse.
5
@Leigh. If kids are in day care 8 or 9 hours per day, that leaves 15 to 16 hours per day at home, plenty of time to be abused. And don’t forget weekends, when most people don’t work.
5
@Leigh you said it and there is much more, considering the states foster care systems were children get abused and killed and go missing, the shame of any civilized and humane society. Does Head Start even still exist??
Montessori started out for disadvantaged children now it is only for children of well to do families.
2
In the Province of Québec there is a day care program started in 1997. This program garante that the people who are using the program pay only $7 a day. (It used to be $5 a day.)The rest is pay by the government. The result is more women may be able to get a job and therefore pay taxes and put more money in the economy. Every women working in Ottawa and living in Québec (Which is just the other side of the Ottawa River) were telling me how they benefit and the money they save on day care. Because day care is pretty expensive in Ontario. This program should be extended to all of Canada. And the Democratic Party should study it. And, yes, Canada is not Denmark as Hillary Clinton would say.
45
@Wilbray Thiffault
Canada and Denmark are much the same. Both nations are advanced and wealthy nations and the children have the same need for quality care. Canada can afford quality daycare just like Denmark can.
Where there is a will there is a way.
15
I'm in Chicago and the childcare cost for my youngest is well, well above average for Illinois - almost double - even when sharing a nanny with another family (not to mention the ridiculous double taxation we face as employers with both families paying the state and federal unemployment for the same person doing the same job instead of sharing that cost). We have too many people here paying nannies under the table, it distorts the cost throughout the city. I've had to request a deferment of my student loans just to make ends meet. We had only one candidate, Amaya Pawar, in our last gubernatorial election have as part of his platform affordable childcare and he bowed out of the race early for lack of support. If I didn't share custody of my oldest child I would be relocating and I frequently weigh putting up the custody fight to be able to move elsewhere with a more affordable cost of living.
10
@Jeff It is strange that American parents never really demanded the most basic family service, quality affordable day-care. Day-care would benefit every child.
They have issues with trivial bathroom use but essential child care is being ignored, the nation can't afford it or it is demonized as socialism.
10
@R. Littlejohn
I don't think it is by choice but by planned media diversion. Psy 101 seems to be the basic operational plan; create emotional extreme over a close-to-the-heart issue and then switch the focus. It is the basic political foundational block.
1
@Jeff
Lower cost of living usually correlated with lower taxation. Who will pay for it. High tax, high service states like New York and Illinois already have people fleeing the taxes for low tax, low services states like Texas and Florida.
It would be interesting though to see one of them experiment with it ...from elsewhere. If you can make it work, then we can all jump in.
2
No argument about the necessity for good child care here.
But American women approaching or in their child-bearing years have made the logical choice when confronted with the child and woman unfriendly nature of 21st-century vulture capitalist society--their fertility rates are way down from what they were a half-century ago, all due respect to birth control and the differences in these rates by economic class.
Now, this may not be a bad thing--surely no one thinks we're better off with a constantly burgeoning population, given each new person's contribution to resource usage on a climatically precarious planet. But certainly every one that does manage to be born is worth a societal health care and education commitment. And so are their parents. And everyone else.
13
@Glenn Ribotsky
The European countries with child care benefits have much lower birth rates.
4
I am single in my mid 30s and I own my own home and would love to have a child. The only thing that is holding me back is I cannot afford full-time daycare; it would be equal to another mortgage for me. I truly don’t understand how any middle-class single mother gets by.
102
I'm about to do it, and I'm relying on savings and financial support from my parents. It would be impossible otherwise.
11
@Felty Parents, yes, fathers included, should organize and demand quality affordable childcare.
The women's movements have tended to be in support of professional women, never including less advantaged women and the urgent needs for childcare.
9
@Christine M I don't know about other people, but when I was a young divorced mother who didn't have familial support and did not receive child support (which would have covered 1/4 of the day care costs) from my child's deadbeat dad, we quickly slipped out of the middle-class and slid straight into abject poverty. I had a horrible time finding a babysitter who was sober, responsible and didn't cost an arm and a leg.
35
People ask how we're saving for our toddler's eventual college tuition, and the answer is: we're already paying it (and more!) for daycare. The year of daycare is more expensive than 2 semesters of full load in state college tuition and fees! But it's more than that, if you want to reduce inequality in this society, funding high quality early childhood education will give far more bang for the buck. Sudies have shown that educators are able to predict which children will go on get a college education, when they are merely 5 years old. That's how much early education matters. And those of us who have the ability to pay for the best daycare/preschool care are giving our children a massive leg up. Its much harder to even get into college (and have a student loan inthe first place) if your parents are financially unable to provide you with a high quality early childhood education.
106
@Isabel for decades New Jersey has offered free preschool / daycare to any family in poorer areas of the state. In these areas, they also spend on average 30% per pupil for elementary and secondary primary education than the rest of the state. Billions of dollars invested.
The result? The achievement gap and graduation rates between poor and wealthier areas has grown, not shrunk over time. Turns out, according to a highly placed director of these services, the programs have been "a huge failure".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district#Performance
6
@Matt - Exactly! NJ didn't get it right so obviously it won't work anywhere - let's just forget the whole thing!
3
NY colleges have mandatory fees in addition to tuition. You cite $14144 as child care costs in NY and state its double the cost of a year in college in NY. UB, per their website, is app. $10,000 for undergrad tuition and fees. Stony Brook is close to that.
Also, when speaking of percent attending college, the stats should include those completing a two year program as well as those completing a four year program.
5
I have children in SUNY schools. That number doesn't include room and board if they live on campus, which bring it up to around $20K/year.
9
"Nearly a half-century later, times have changed. Working mothers of small children are the norm and hostility to them is, finally, ebbing."
Uh, not...really. Among all the other surprises of motherhood, I continue to be astonished by the source of the enduring hostility that strikes me most: from other mothers, whether they work outside the home or within.
What makes *me* feel hostile is the way we constantly couch working parenthood as a mother's problem. As with so many other societal ills, it gives our culture and our policy a target for blame and really commits us to an argument that keeps us too preoccupied to find a solution. Rinse, repeat for racism, sexism, immigration...
88
@MRD When did this nation ever have a consistent family policy?
The nation needs a state department for families with a voice in the cabinet. We need coherent policies for housing, health care, childcare, and early childhood education. In short, we need real family care.
We have become a nation of nuclear families, there is not much close family support, families break up and live far apart.
10
@R. Littlejohn
The nation needs none of those things. It is not a national problem. If Texas or Louisiana needs them, and the case can be made, then they can be implemented at national or local levels.
2
Hear, hear but lets emphasize "quality child care" please. The existing publicly funded childcare programs are can't pay for quality teachers, have terrible adult-child ratios and run preschools like they are kindergartens. Nurturing, warm, developmentally appropriate centers will also reap incredible rewards.
66
@Ms B
Then again perhaps demand for quality teachers and caregivers heavily exceeds supply. And quite possibly always will.
5
@Ms B
Montessori for all our children. The nation has the money to fund it too if we would invest in children instead of more weapons and more wars. That is where our taxes really go.
14
@R. Littlejohn
Actually, your taxes go to primarily to social programs. In the future, interest on the money being borrowed now will eat up far more.
2
One of Julian Castro's signature achievements as Mayor of San Antonio was Pre-K4SA, though that's not as expansive as the author suggests here. I'd expect if Castro sticks in the race, this could feature on the party platform.
Of course actual paid maternity leave (even three months, to at least let you see your kid get their first vaccines and become old enough to go to a daycare) would also be a good idea.
52
@Jeff It should be on the Democratic party platform regardless of who runs for president.
What the nation spends on real quality childcare the nation would not have to spend on prisons and incarcerations.
9
@Jeff
Castro's Pre-K4SA centers look great. But in true Wall Street Dem fashion there are only 4 of them, they are funded by a regressive sales tax, they only serve a small fraction of San Antonio's kids and it appears that they have been enlisted to channel students into charter schools.
Julian Castro is another centrist Wall Street Democrat. He's not going to be the Democratic nominee either. His role will be to dutifully withdraw and endorse whoever becomes the consensus Wall Street candidate (Beto, Biden or Harris being the most likely) at whatever moment will best contribute to a manufactured "bandwagon effect."
Castro may or may not campaign on universal pre-K and it may or may not become part of the party's official platform. What we can be certain of, however, is that if another Wall Street Democrat occupies the White House the best we should hope for is some sort of grossly underfunded means-tested voucher or tax credit system that doesn't seriously address the issues of pre-K teacher training.
We all need to better understand how Wall Street Dems like Castro (but also Beto and Harris and...) cynically employ vague progressive rhetoric while often working to cut more substantive progressive initiatives off at the knees.
Poor and working class Americans need free universal pre-K. They also need to learn that pro-corporate candidates like Castro will never deliver it and vote accordingly.
In the Seattle metro area, infant day care is more like $17,000 a year. That's over three times the cost in Alabama.
A national fully funded universal day care plan would be an outstanding political achievement but a more achievable program is a mix of funding by employers, government and income tested contributions from families. Those who want extras like second language immersion could pay more out of pocket.
There will be a growing incentive for employers to attract and retain skilled and experienced workers of child rearing age, especially as the Baby Boom exits, immigration falls and Millennial households dream about FIRE.
15
@Look Ahead
There is no reason to believe that the national government would create a better program for Seattle than Seattle would.
3
In 1979, when I returned to work after the birth of my only child, I calculated that my net contribution to the family finances after deducting commuting costs, extra taxes and off-the-books child care was $95 a month. I had a college degree and a skilled job. One big factor in my decision to only have one child was the cost of care for the second child.
My daughter has 2 children under the age of 5. She and her family live in Germany where there is low cost, high quality childcare for both children. She isn't sure if their German relocation is temporary or permanent. But Germany is currently reaping the economic benefits of two US college educated people.
182
I love this column because Katha Pollitt doesn't appeal to our bleeding hearts but to our pragmatism. Universal guaranteed day-care won't just help struggling mothers- it will charge the economy by allowing greater productivity, the same way that fixing our inefficient health care system will.
It may sound cold to put child rearing in economic terms, but with smaller families and labor saving devises, it is a waste of talent for women to be tied to domestic life if they have other ambitions.
This can be a win-win-win-win. For the child- who gets to be with lots of other children and learn how to positively integrate with them- the pre-school educators, who are truly expert at helping children reach their potential- the mothers, who get to develop their careers- and for the overall economy, because the women will be making money for themselves and their companies.
Of course, conservatives don't believe in government based investments, no matter how much data and proof you throw at them. They have built an ideological wall against using the government to improve society.
We'll just have to vote them out of power to move this country forward.
321
I think conservatives are more open to this idea than you think. If it were coupled with a renewed emphasis on encouraging two parent households you’d have strong support from both sides.
4
@alan haigh - Does educating our citizens, providing health care, potable water and breathable air, sound "bleeding heart"?
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your point, but why do we Progressives always use terms chosen by (R)egressives, e.g., "welfare" vs. "social justice"?
4
Every child should have access to quality misery school, day care and pre-k
1